Arts & Culture | Film

On The Oscars, Talmud Scholars And Risky Filmmaking

03/05/2012 | Eric Herschthal | Staff Writer | Film

“Footnote,” the latest film from Joseph Cedar, an American-born Israeli director, will be released in U.S. theaters on Friday, March 9. But already the film has received enormous attention. It was a finalist for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars. (It lost to Iran’s “A Separation.”) But it has already won a big prize at Cannes and Best Picture at the Ophir Awards, Israel’s Oscar-equivalent. “Footnote” tells the story of two feuding Talmud scholars, a father and son, at Hebrew University. The younger one is more successful. Cedar, 43, spoke about the film this week from Los Angeles, where he was attending the Academy Awards.

Notes From The Underground

02/07/2012 | George Robinson | Special to the Jewish Week | Film

When you ask Agnieszka Holland about the historical tensions between Jews and Catholics in her native Poland, she doesn’t have far to look for a reply.

‘We Favor Films About The People, Not The Disability’

01/31/2012 | George Robinson | Special to the Jewish Week | Film

What is the largest minority group in the United States? Hint: it is the only minority group to which anyone may belong, a group that many of us will join with the passage of time, but a group that is woefully underrepresented in many elements of American life, including the arts.

New York Jewish Film Fest’s Sweet Farewell

01/17/2012 | George Robinson | Special to the Jewish Week | Film

It isn’t hard to find a common theme uniting some of the more interesting entries in the final week of the New York Jewish Film Festival this year. From the cafés of Paris to the Catskills, the documentaries on display are ruminations on the role of the Jewish artist in modernity. One could even argue, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that the excellent Polish thriller “Daas” is about a Jewish artist. A con artist.

‘Extremely Loud’ Screenwriter On Turning The Novel Into A Film

01/12/2012 | Eric Herschthal | Staff Writer | Film

The screenwriter Eric Roth isn’t in want of an Oscar. He already has one for “Forrest Gump,” and has been nominated several more times for films like “Munich” and “The Insider.” But Scott Rudin, the producer behind Roth’s latest film, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” which opened in December in New York and Los Angeles to qualify for the Oscars, and gets a nationwide release on Jan. 20, has made no secret that he intends to win one.

A ‘Passion’ To Tell Entebbe Hero’s Tale

01/10/2012 | Gary Rosenblatt | Editor And Publisher | Film

Yonatan Pinchot, 14, of Silver Spring, Md., has a special connection to new documentary film called “Follow Me,” telling the personal story of an authentic, modern-day Israeli hero.