The fifth annual Las Vegas Celebration of Jewish Film runs today through Monday at the Century Suncoast theater. This year's festival features eight screenings, each sponsored by a different local Jewish organization. Tickets are $10 for each showing. A free video program, The History of Jewish Women in Las Vegas, also will be showing from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. January 16 in the Suncoast's Madrid B ballroom. For more information, visit www.desertspace.org/film_festival/index.html.
January 12
Campfire (7 p.m.)
A winner of five Israeli Academy Awards in 2004, including Best Picture. Michaela Eshet stars as Rachel, a recently widowed mother of two teenage girls, who hopes to start a new life with her family by joining a religious settlement in the West Bank. But she must first convince the community's leader, Motke (Assi Dayan), that she is a worthy candidate. In Hebrew with English subtitles.
January 14
Gloomy Sunday (7 p.m.)
This 1999 film is a love story that takes place during the turmoil of World War II. Two men fall in love with the beautiful Ilona: Laszlo, the owner of Restaurant Szabo, and Andras, the pianist who, inspired by Ilona's beauty, composes a tragically beautiful song that causes people who listen to it to take their own lives. In German with English subtitles.
January 15
Metallic Blues (1 p.m.)
Metallic Blues is a road movie about two Israeli car dealers who risk it all in search of a better life, only to find out the most unexpected personal and historical truths. In Hebrew with English subtitles.
Free Zone (4 p.m.)
Natalie Portman stars alongside Hanna Laszlo, winner of the Best Actress Award at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. While in Jerusalem, Rebecca (Portman) breaks off her engagement. Emotional and heartbroken, she flees from her ex-fiancé to get her life together. Without a destination, she gets into a cab driven by Hanna (Laszlo), who is on her way to Jordan's Free Zone to pick up some money owed to her. In Hebrew with English subtitles.
Divided We Fall (7 p.m.)
Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film in 2001, Divided We Fall is set in a small Czech town occupied by the Germans during World War II. David, a young Jew who has escaped from a concentration camp and returned to his hometown, is given refuge by a childless Czech couple who now must prevent authorities from discovering him and ordering the execution of their entire street. In Czech and German with English subtitles.
January 16
Wondrous Oblivion (1 p.m.)
In 1960 London, 11-year-old David Wiseman is a good Jewish boy with one big problem: He's in love with the game of cricket but he's a terrible athlete. But David's life, and that of his attractive refugee mother and stubborn Polish father, is about to change radically when, to the dismay of their narrow-minded neighbors, a black Jamaican family moves in next door.
Imaginary Witness: Hollywood & The Holocaust (4 p.m.)
Imaginary Witness explores the ways American movies shape our perception of the Holocaust. Beginning with American ambivalence and denial during the height of Nazism, the film explores the silence of the postwar years, the impact of television, and the current climate. Filmmaker Daniel Anker will appear live in person.
Le Grand Role (7 p.m.)
When a famous American film director comes to Paris to cast a Yiddish version of The Merchant of Venice, Maurice Kurtz and his friends try out for the role of Shylock. Later, Maurice discovers the part has gone to a famous American star, but he must play the role of his life to be sure his wife, who has become very ill with cancer, doesn't find out. In French with English subtitles.