Klezmer
on Fish Street
WINNER,
Special Jury Selection, 2003 Palm Beach Int’l Film
Fest
If you’ve seen “The Pianist”, you have a sense of Jewish life in Poland during WWII…
now see what Jewish life is like in Poland today.
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When you travel to Krakow, Poland, you can stay in the former Jewish Quarter of Kazimiercz, at a Jewish inn. You will wake up to a kosher-style breakfast. You will take the “Schindler’s List” tour. You will return for a kosher-style lunch, and then take the bus to Auschwitz-Birkenau. You will end your day with a kosher-style dinner, followed by a klezmer concert, will you have met a Polish Jew? Is the revival of Jewish culture in Poland today only the culture or is Jewish life being revived as well? These and other questions will be examined in this film through the through the eyes of “The Klezmaniacs” - a group of young, Jewish-American klezmer musicians - traveling to Poland on a self-initiated "musical goodwill tour". Translating for them is singer Shira Shazeer's grandmother, who lost her family and was deported 60 years earlier. As this "next generation" of proponents of Yiddish culture explores their roots, the grandmother searches her childhood neighborhood for any remaining vestiges of Jewish life. These vignettes of Poland are intercut with an unfolding confrontation between Jewish tourists, non-Jewish Poles and Jewish Poles while the local police stand by uneasily. Together, these scenes create a true sense of Jewish life in Poland today. The film is distributed by Castle Hill Films and is available on DVD, video and BETA. 646 822-9232 |
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L'Chayim, Comrade Stalin
Official Selection – 2002 Berlin Film Festival
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In March of 2000, director Yale Strom flew to Moscow to begin his trek to the fabled Jewish Autonomous Region of Siberia. Upon arrival, he discovered that some of his luggage and camera equipment had been misrouted. The Russian authorities weren’t overly concerned. Rather, Strom was informed that he had brought his violin with him “illegally” – and unless he could provide proper documentation, including photos of his violin, he would not be permitted to return to America with it. He offered to shoot off a roll of film on the spot, but he was told that he had to follow bureaucratic procedure. Thus, the stage is set for Strom’s journey to Birobidzhan, capitol of the J.A.R., on Siberia’s Far Eastern border. Accompanying him on the 7-day train trip via Trans-Siberian Railroad is interpreter-bodyguard (and former KGB agent) Slava Andreovich. As Strom travels east, he makes the serendipitous discovery that Slava is in fact the grandson of Mikhail Kalinin, first president of the U.S.S.R. and the architect of the J.A.R. Slava is also a dedicated anti-Semite… although he likes Yale: “If I hated all Jews, would I be here with you?”
The endless train trip, and the casual anti-Semitism of his Russian fellow passengers, immerse Strom in the experiences of the first Jewish pioneers to settle the region in 1928. Strom’s interviews and encounters are intercut with archival footage and scenes from the rare Soviet propaganda film about Birobidzhan, entitled “Seekers of Happiness” (1936). Strom’s encounters with Russians en route to Birobidzhan, and his interviews with early Jewish pioneers to the J.A.R. (and young proponents of the rekindled interest in Yiddish culture) both in the U.S. and Russia, paint a vivid portrait of the circumstances surrounding this unique chapter in Soviet, and world, history.
The film is distributed by Cinema Guild and is available on DVD, video and BETA. 212-685-6242.
*Official Selection – 2002 Berlin Film Festival*-----
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AT THE CROSSROADS: JEWISH LIFE IN
EASTERN EUROPE TODAY (1989)
"Celebrates
enduring culture..." LA Times
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 How was perestroika effecting Jewish communities in Poland, Hungary and former Czechoslovakia, just as the Berlin Wall was tumbling down? With his violin in hand, Yale travels and speaks with Jews and non-Jews about what it means to be a Jew in a "new" Eastern Europe. (available on 16mm & video from Yale Strom) |
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THE
LAST KLEZMER: LEOPOLD KOZLOWSKI, HIS LIFE AND MUSIC (1994)
"One of 1994's
top ten films..." Michael Medved - NY Post
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Meet the last klezmer to have grown up in the tradition
and who is still performing and teaching his art to mostly
gentiles in Poland today. Leopold takes a trip back to his
hometown of Prezmyslany, Ukraine for the first time since
1945 and shows Yale what life was like for a klezmer before
WWII. Along the way we meet a friend of Leopold's and learn
how they both survived the war.
(available on 16mm & video
from New Yorker films 212-247-6110, 800-447-0196)
The Last Klezmer is a beautifully heartfelt personal exploration of one man's survival, and his attempt to make his cherished music survive as well.
- DVD Talk  Read More |
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CARPATI:
50 MILES, 50 YEARS (1996)
Zev Godinger as an
ice cream vendor in Beregovo, in 1951.
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 Zev Godinger is the caretaker of the Jewish community of
Beregovo, Ukraine. When Zev meets Yale and his partner David
Notowitz, he decides to return to his hometown of Vinogradov
for the first time in 50 years. While on the train trip Zev
carries a Torah (brought by Yale & David from the US)
for his boyhood synagogue which hasn't had one for years.
During the course of the trip we meet many of Zev's friends,
particularly the Gypsies who are the ones who maintain what
little Jewish music remains in the Carpathian mountains. DVD available through the distributor Cinema Guild. (212) 685-6242
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Zev Godinger on the train traveling to Vinogradov.
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"Bittersweet and poignant...." Stephen Holden - NY Times
"One of 1996's top ten films..." David Moss - San Diego Union - Tribune |
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A
MAN FROM MUNKACS: GYPSY KLEZMER (2005)
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| A Man From Munkacs: Gypsy
Klezmer explores the symbiotic relationship between
the Rom and Jews who lived together before and after
World War Two in the Carpathian region. Before the Holocaust
there, whenever there was a Jewish celebration (e.g.,
a wedding, Purim festivities, dance etc.), most of the
time the klezmer musicians were not Jews but Rom. In
fact, the Rom had played with and for Jews for so many
years that some of them spoke a fluent Yiddish. The
film examines how this persecuted group (the Rom) saved
Jewish folk music until it could be returned to the
Jews. We learn about Gyula Galombosi, a Rom virtuoso
violinist who traveled throughout the Soviet Union playing
classical, Rom, Russian and klezmer music until his
death in1986. His hometown was Munkacs and in this hometown
lived the Jakubowicz family. Ferenc (Feri) Jakubowicz
was the first Jewish child born after the Holocaust
in Munkacs, which was cause for great celebration -
Jewish life was being renewed.
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During Feri’s birth,
Galombosi and his fellow musicians played klezmer music
on the street below the apartment. Feri was told this
story by his father years later, which caused him to
be more curious about klezmer. Feri and Gyula became
good friends. Feri, a pianist, learned many great klezmer
tunes from Gyula. When Feri and his family immigrated
to Budapest in 1979, Feri played music with a local
opera company. In the film, Feri shares his initial
ambivalence about publicly announcing his Jewishness
and his love of klezmer to the gentile world. But in
1990, he formed the first klezmer band in Hungary since
the 1920’s, “The Budapest Klezmer Band”
and taught the tunes he had learned from Galombosi to
the rest of his band, who were not Jewish. On camera,
Feri gradually remembers a Munkatsher tune his uncle
use to sing to him when he was a young |
boy. This tune, “The
Munkatsher Nign” provides a musical motif throughout
the film, as it is interpreted by various Rom and
Jewish musicians. Through Feri and Galombosi’s
stories, we will trace the rebirth of Jewish music
in Hungary today.
The film is 58 min.
long and was produced by Duna TV (Hungary) and Starcrest
Films (Frankfurt, Germany).
yitztyco@aol.com
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