Photo courtesy Focus Features At the beginning of “Final Account,” you realize that this is unlike any other documentary on the Holocaust that you’ve ever watched. It starts with an elderly gentleman, Hugo Gote, singing a song with the verses, “Sharpen the long knives … so that they go better … into the Jewish…
By Justin Kroll for Deadline Though his adaptation of West Side Story is not set to make its premiere till later this year, Steven Spielberg looks to have found his next directing gig, one of which is very close to home. Sources tell Deadline that Spielberg is coming on to direct an untitled pic at Amblin…
Co-produced by Israeli Guy Davidi and Palestinian Emad Burnat, 5 Broken Cameras was well received at Sundance Film Festival last month and was the recipient of the World Cinema Directing Award. This month it screens at the Portland Jewish Film Festivaal. Shot from a one-man perspective, 5 Broken Cameras is a refreshing change from other…
Personal to those who swore they’d never see another Holocaust-themed film as long as they lived: Rescind your vow, just this once. The German drama Remembrance (Die Verlerone Zeit) is that good. It’s better than good, in fact. It’s unforgettable. Anna Justice’s fact-based saga relates a tale of escape from war-torn Poland nearly as incredible…
Four Israeli films screened this year at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Three were documentaries and one – Barbie Blues – was chosen for a new section, the Short Film Category. The Law in These Parts and 5 Broken Cameras, two documentaries about Israeli occupation in the West Bank won awards…
Curiosity led Daniel Benzali to walk into the Gerding Theater shortly after he moved to Portland last fall. A few days later, the accomplished actor signed on to star as Mark Rothko in the theater’s production of Red. He describes the play as “a powerful insight into an artist’s work and life and philosophy. ……
Actor Daniel Benzali began his quest to bring painter Mark Rothko to life onstage in 2004, about the same time Harold Schnitzer began his quest to bring the Portland-raised artist’s famed works back to the Portland Art Museum, where his first exhibit appeared in 1933-34. Though Schnitzer died last April, it was his drive to…
When the Nazis brutally emptied the Lvov Ghetto in 1943, a small group of Polish Jews had several frantic seconds to make a life-or-death choice: The hell above or the hell below. Following shouted orders meant deportation to the death camps, although they didn’t know that. What they could be certain of was that the…
