Arts & Culture | Film

A Real (Smoked) Fish Story

02/19/2013 | George Robinson | Special To The Jewish Week | Film

The Upper West Side exerts a stronger gravitational pull than any black hole. Astronomers may not acknowledge this, but anyone who has lived between Central Park West and the Hudson, from 116th Street to Columbus Circle, can tell you this is true.

All In The Family At NewFilmmakers Series

02/17/2013 | George Robinson | Special to the Jewish Week | Film

It is billed, accurately, as a showcase for Jewish and Israeli films and directors, but the all-consuming power of family could just as easily be the theme of this month’s NewFilmmakers program at Anthology Film Archives. From Carroll Gardens to Borough Park as well as Tel Aviv and unnamed places in Eastern Europe, the films on display on Feb. 20 are all about the two-edged sword of blood ties; but their approaches to the subject are varied. With no disrespect to Count Tolstoy, even happy families are not all alike, so films about them won’t be either. all different, so films about them will be, too.

A Dark Fairy Tale In Occupied Germany

02/05/2013 | George Robinson | Special To The Jewish Week | Film

Towards the end of “Lore,” Cate Shortland’s brilliant new film, which opens Feb. 8, there is a moment that crystallizes the film’s concerns in a most unexpected way.

‘From The Depths Of Despair To The Heights Of Hope’

01/22/2013 | George Robinson | Special To The Jewish Week | Film

The Torah scroll was very small, maybe the size of a grown man’s hand. It had been read in a place unimaginable in a sacred text, inside the very precincts of hell, as part of a bar mitzvah ceremony in the unlikeliest and worst place on earth, Bergen-Belsen. Now it was being carried on a journey almost as incomprehensible.

‘New World Out There’ For Gays, Israel

01/22/2013 | George Robinson | Special To The Jewish Week | Film

Ten years ago, when his film “Yossi and Jagger” was released to wide acclaim, Eytan Fox had no thought of a sequel.

Life Is A Cabaret

01/15/2013 | George Robinson | Special to the Jewish Week | Film

The musical thread that began this year’s New York Jewish Film Festival (with films about blues singer Doc Pomus and the iconic song “Hava Nagila,” among others) has persisted quite charmingly into the annual event’s final week.