By TIERNAN O’NEILL -Digital Copy Editor
Spanning from March 16 to March 19 the sixth annual Athens Jewish Film Festival celebrated Jewish cinematography and film.
The sixth annual Athens Jewish Film Festival kicked off on March 16 with a gala brunch at the Georgia Theater. The festival featured films of all genres from all over the world, all with prevalent Jewish themes.
The film festival was founded in 2008 by a grant from the Athens-Clarke County Mayor’s Community Improvement Fund and added the short film competition in 2010 with funding from the Saul O. Sidore Foundation, a New Hampshire-based organization.
“These are movies that you really aren’t going to see anywhere else. I think it just opens the door for people who are not familiar with anything to do with Judaism,” Athens Jewish Film Festival board member Jan Harris said. There’s so many aspects of it. There’s political, there’s religious, there’s history. That’s why I think it’s so successful.”
This year, the festival’s screening committee chose the 11 selected films from a pool of 90 different motion pictures from multiple countries across the globe. The festival also hosted a short film festival, where filmmakers submit short films and the screening committee selects winners from the submissions.
“We have 11 films and a (short film) festival,” Clarke Middle School English department teacher and Athens Jewish Film Festival marketing director Meghan McNeeley said. “The films are from all over the world. We have French, Portuguese, Polish, Israeli, we have documentaries, we have family friendly, we have bio pics, we have it all. There’s some excellent (films).”
Although Judaism is a minority religion in Athens, co-chair of the screening committee Marsha Rosenthal believes that most Athenians can relate to the films.
“Judaism is sort of a minority religion in this country, but Jews have contributed a lot to the country and I think it’s part of the whole mix. I think (the festival has) gone very well so far, I’m really pleased by how what’s happened,” Rosenthal said.
Not all of the films are produced by Jewish filmmakers and some do not even feature Jewish characters.
“There’s no Jews in (Aftermath) at all, so here we’re showing a film at the Jewish film festival that has no Jews,” McNeeley said. “What we have is the history of a village, a fictional village, that killed the Jews in their town without the support, or the Nazis right there.”
Aftermath, a Polish film, was one of the more controversial films screened at the festival.
“What we have is a current issue being dealt with in Poland. Actually, places in Poland have banned the film. It’s very controversial and so we’re really excited to show it here and I’m hoping it’s going to spark some questions and discussion,” McNeeley said.
The festival aims to screen movies of all genres and types, from kid-friendly to non-fiction. This year, the festival had students from Clarke Central and CMS in attendance.
“(Numbered) was different than most Holocaust movies because it really showed a lot of people’s different opinions and it showed you more what the people were thinking about, instead of just facts,” CMS seventh grade student Flora Lechtreck said.
The Athens Jewish Film Festival has grown since its founding, but hopes to grow in the next few years.
“We’d like our numbers to grow. I think we had just a little over 100 at the Gala and then our films, the earlier ones have a small crowd and then the later evening ones draw a larger crowd,” McNeeley said. “So, we try to get about 100 to 150 (people in attendance) and we’re happy.”
