Mandel JCC Cleveland Jewish FilmFest

Join us at the 2024 Cleveland Jewish FilmFest!

Schedule of Events:

10:00am: The Catskills

The Catskills is a humorous and nostalgic tribute to what became affectionately known as the Borscht Belt. Stand-up comedians share their best shtick while former waiters, entertainers, and dance instructors recount tales of the family-run resorts and bungalows that inspired films like Dirty Dancing. Featuring home movies, publicity photos, postcards, and menus, this time capsule provides an overview of Jewish immigration to New York going back to the early twentieth century. Director Lex Gillespie maps the development of the vacation destination, from a refuge for working-class Jews seeking a respite from poverty in overcrowded New York City tenements to a lavish summer playground for the affluent.

1:00pm: Children of Peace

Arabs and Jews have lived in ongoing conflict for over a century. In 1970s Israel, a group of dreamers decided to challenge everything they knew about their nationalities and histories and founded a new Israeli village, Neve Shalom, the only community in the world where Palestinians and Israelis chose to live together. The documentary, which follows the many children who were brought up in this environment, focuses on the internal struggles and the outside conflict that challenged the community's revolutionary ecosystem.

4:00pm: The Boy in the Woods

Based on Maxwell Smart's best-selling memoir, The Boy in the Woods follows the true story of a resourceful young boy's harrowing experience of surviving the Holocaust. After his family is rounded up by the Germans, Max's mother and aunt help him escape into the woods where he must learn to fend for himself. Max encounters another young boy in hiding and the two heroically save a baby girl. More than just an individual survival story, the film is testament to Max's innate sense of compassion to set aside his fear and help others.

7:00pm: Home

Home is the engrossing story of Yair, a newly married ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva student, who opens an electronics shop in Geula, a neighborhood that is the shopping epicenter for the ultra-Orthodox community in Jerusalem. The religious character of the neighborhood is enforced by the "Geula Committee" and Yair strictly adheres to their rules. His shop is introducing a world of advanced technology that overnight becomes a magnet for every ultra-Orthodox household, but the increasing intrusion of modernity is an affront to the committee, leading to an inevitable conflict that forces Yair into a desperate struggle for survival. Based on true events.