Spring Jewish Experience Series

APRIL 28, 29, & May 3, 2020

This Year's Program Celebrates the Power of Art and Culture in Affecting Positive Change

• CLICK HERE -- OR THE IMAGE BELOW -- FOR THE FULL ONLINE PROGRAM •

15th Annual event takes place April 27-May 3rd in collaboration with Roger Williams University. Highlights include major international shorts and features, and documentaries and a celebration of the arts. This is the inaugural Online Presentation of the Festival.

Roger Williams University (RWU) has partnered with the Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF) to present its Spring-edition of the bi-annual Roving Eye International Film Festival. The popular and acclaimed Festival celebrating global cinema and artists, announces its 2020 Spring sidebar program on The Jewish Experience through short films, documentary, media and guest speakers. This year’s Jewish Experience theme is “ARTS AND CULTURE: Storytelling Through Time,” and is presented by a grant from the Edwin S. Soforenko Foundation. For the very first time, this year's event will take place entirely online as a virtual Festival.

All programming will be free to viewers.

The event takes place during the Roving Eye Festival, April 27, 28 & May 3, 2020.

This year’s programming explores representations of the Jewish experience in Israel, across the globe and the Holocaust through 11 premiere films, including sneak peeks of films that will play the Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival in August.

With the emergence of the novel coronavirus COVID-19, plans shifted quickly to ensure that the Festival took place. Students have met numerous times weekly on Zoom to plan out the Festival, reach out to filmmakers, and work on marketing and promotional collateral, including a new logo design, posters and PSA.

Students in the Curation and Film Production Class include: Elias Bakas, Samuel Bartoes, Owen Bearer, Cameron Bortolussi, Luke Brennan, Sarah Coleman, Benjamin Crawley, Matthew Fernandes, Williams Guido, Jordan Hawkes, Robert Libertini, Chloe Noyes, Gavin Okun, Molly Ortiz, Sara Osborne, Tyler Porter, Mariah Richards, Makenzie Rose, Paul Schnadig, Leia Stone, Jordan Sweenie, Angeli Tillet and Cullen Zurcher.

The 2020 Roving Eye International Film Festival is sponsored by The RI Film & the Television Office; Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival; WSBE Rhode Island PBS; Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, Edge Media Network, the Edwin S. Soforenko Foundation, RWU School of Humanities, Arts and Education, Dean Cynthia Scheinberg, RWU Department of Communication, Graphic Design and Web Development, Dr. Robert Cole, Department Chair, RWU Hillel, THE RWU HAWK'S HERALD, and WQRI Radio at Roger Williams University.

TUESDAY, April 28th
6:00 p.m. Global Heritage Hall, Room 01

HOW WE SEE OURSELVES…
Documentary and Narrative Film Screenings with Director's Discussion

Location: Virtual Café, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI

SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR
Directed by: Adva Reichman | 18 min. Israel, United States, 2018
Nabila, an 8-months pregnant Palestinian woman, whose husband died in the Israeli prison, wants to revenge his death. With the help of Hamas, she plans a terror attack in Israel. The premature birth of her baby makes her reconsider, but will Hamas let her off the hook?

Director’s Biography
Adva Reichman is an Israeli writer/director. She is a graduate of the TV & Film Production MFA program at USC School of Cinematic Arts. Her film, Something to Live For, deals with the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Before moving to LA, Adva worked in the Israeli news and on documentaries that revolved around terror attacks and kidnappings that took place in Israel in the '70s and '80s. These experiences inspired many of her writings.

EVER, REVE
Directed by: Olivier Morel | 118 min. France, 2018
"Ever, Rêve, Hélène Cixous" films the roads to creation of an African & French feminist legend, a 1968 activist, a famous playwright, and poet who shares all the "wars of liberation" of our time.

WEDNESDAY, April 29th:

6:00 p.m. Global Heritage Hall, Room 01
MEMORIES NEVER DIE
Documentary and Narrative Film Screenings with Director's Discussion

Location: Virtual Café, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI

DOCTOR COHEN
Directed by: Matheus Benites | 17 min. Brazil, 2018
A melancholic atheist appeals to religion when things go wrong. Will it help him or make him waste his time?

17 MINUTES
Directed by: Alon Marom | 84 min. Israel, 2018
A coming of age drama that follows four adolescents, outstanding athletes living at Israel's national sports Academy. The four are facing a system that pushes them to their limits and forces them to discover whether they have what it takes to become champs or come to realize their youth was spent in vain.

8:30 p.m.

MEMORIES NEVER DIE II
Documentary and Narrative Film Screenings with Director's Discussion
Location: Virtual Café, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI

FINE
Directed by: Maya Yadlin | 9 min. Israel, 2019
A mother, a father and two daughters are driving through the desert, on their way to a holiday feast. The girls are sleeping peacefully in the back seat, but their tranquility is disturbed when their dad hears a beloved song and tries to share the experience with them. At that moment, the familiar family dynamic, centering around each family member's need to feel seen, begins to play out.

THE MOUSE
Directed by: Liat Akta | 12 min. Israel, 2018
Do the values that we got from our parents define who we are? This is the story of a hard-working family in an Israeli suburb in the seventies. The father cannot deal with problems at home and escapes to alcohol and sex. The mother tries to keep the family together at any price but does not acknowledge her kids' feelings. Each parent uses their kids to their advantage while giving them responsibilities they cannot hold. The kids try to imitate their parent's behavior in order to survive.
We follow the family's reality from the kids' point of view, the lays and manipulation of the adults, the messages they deliver to their children, those that will make them how they are. Catching the mouse, isn’t always the same.

YOUNG POLACAS
Directed by: Alex Levy-Heller | 97 min. Brazil, 2019
The story of the famous "Polacas" in Rio de Janeiro. Ricardo, a young journalist, carries out research for his doctoral thesis on the so-called "white slaves". Better known as the "Polacas" they were young Jewish women from eastern Europe, deceived into prostitution in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1900s. When interviewed by Ricardo, Mrs. Mira seeks in her memory for details of the life and routine of her mother, a "Polaca", and in this way she makes peace with her obscured past. Based on the book, "Young Polacas", by Esther Largman.

SUNDAY, May 3rd:

2:00 p.m. Global Heritage Hall, Room 01

THE STORIES WE TELL. THE STORIES WE SHARE
Documentary and Narrative Film Screenings with Director's Discussion

Location: Virtual Café, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI

THE SILENCE OF PROFESSOR TOSLA
Directed by: Ilan Stavans | 23 min. Mexico/United States, 2019
In this animated film, a renowned Jewish mathematician nearing death decides to convey his ultimate knowledge about the nature of time and language to one of his favorite pupils. In Yiddish with English subtitles. Written by Ilan Stavans. Animation and music by Jay Bolotin.

100/100 THE ITINERANT PORTRAITIST
Directed by: Brenda Zlamany & Laure Sullivan |20 min. United States, 2019
In 2017 the iconic Hebrew Home at Riverdale, NY turned 100. Over the course of that year, portrait painter Brenda Zlamany painted 100 of the residents. 100 surprising, unique and inspiring stories emerged.

ETCHED IN GLASS: THE LEGACY OF STEVE ROSS
Directed by: Roger Lyons | 55 min. USA, 2017
'Etched In Glass: The Legacy of Steve Ross' is the compelling, true story of survival, resilience and hope. Young Steve, then Szmulek Rosenthal from Poland, was captured by the Nazis and endured 5 horrific years in 10 concentration camps. Upon his liberation from Dachau, an American soldier showed him kindness, which kindled his resilience, propelling him to dedicate his life to helping disadvantaged young people for over 40 years.

He was the driving force behind the iconic New England Holocaust Memorial on the Freedom Trail in Boston. All the while, Steve searched tirelessly for the soldier who changed the course of his life and the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

4:30 p.m.

THE STORIES WE TELL. THE STORIES WE SHARE – PART II

Location: Virtual Café, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI

MODERN LOVE (Ahava Modernit)
Directed by: Itamar Gross | 12:13 min. Israel, 2019
Three years after he stopped using Facebook, Chaim gives the social network a second chance. When he becomes much more popular than he has ever expected, he must choose between his social network persona and his true character.

EVA
Directed by: Ted Green & Mika Brown | 118 min. Germany, Israel, Poland, Romania, USA, United
Kingdom, 2018
As a 10-year-old 'Mengele Twin,' Eva Kor suffered the worst of the Holocaust: being experimented on by the Auschwitz 'Angel of Death.' At 50, she launched the biggest international manhunt in history. Now 84, she urgently circles the globe in failing health to promote the controversial lesson her journey has taught: healing through forgiveness. “Eva” tells the full, unvarnished story of this historic figure for the first time. Narrated by Hollywood icon Ed Asner, it features spectacular new footage from Auschwitz, from the Transylvanian hamlet from which Eva’s family was carted off to slaughter, and on a boat off Israel where she first tasted freedom. Interviews include Holocaust experts, celebrities she's moved (Elliott Gould, Wolf Blitzer, Ray Allen), fellow survivors she's enraged, and myriad young people whose lives she’s changed -- in many cases saved. Eva Kor has emerged as a worldwide spokeswoman for peace — a recent Buzzfeed video has 187 million views — and 'Eva' will be her legacy.

ABOUT ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY:

Roger Williams University located in Bristol, R.I. is a leading independent, coeducational university with programs in the liberal arts and the professions, where students become community- and globally-minded citizens. With 42 academic majors, an array of co-curricular activities and study abroad opportunities on six continents, RWU is an opencommunity dedicated to the success of students, commitment to a set of corevalues and providing a world-class education above all else. In the last decade, the University has achieved unprecedented successes including recognition as one of the best colleges in the nation by Forbes, a College of Distinction by Student Horizons, Inc. and as both a best college in the Northeast and one of the nation’s greenest universities by The Princeton Review. For more information, go to: www.rwu.edu.

ABOUT FLICKERS' RHODE ISLAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL:

The Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF), has secured its place in the global community as the portal for the best in international independent cinema, earning the respect of domestic and foreign filmmakers, filmgoers and trend watchers. Ranked as one of the top 10 Festivals in the United States, RIIFF is a qualifying festival for the Live Action, Documentary and Animation Short Academy Awards through its affiliation with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Canadian Screen Awards, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). There are only 10 film festivals worldwide that share this distinction and RIIFF is the only festival in New England. The Festival takes place every August.

For more information about the Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival, running Aug. 4-9, 2020 at The Vets (formerly Veterans Memorial Auditorium) and online, please visit call 401.861.4445.

See the 2020 Festival Schedule, click here

See the 2018 Festival Schedule, click here.

See the 2017 Festival Schedule, click here.

See the 2016 Festival Schedule, click here.

See the 2015 Festival Schedule, click here.

See the 2014 Festival Schedule, click here.

See the 2013 Festival Schedule, click here.

See the 2012 Festival Schedule, click here.

See the 2011 Festival Schedule, click here.

Our Collaborative Partners: