A Little Family Conversation

Elliott Gould narrates this affectionate look at life in the shtetls of Eastern Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries. "It's unreal that all this could have just disappeared," says Polish native Mariem Adler Stok, one of the seniors whose memories of this "Yiddish world" give this documentary its life. The hour traces Jewish history in Europe and explores Jews' focus on education, their religious customs, clothing, food, music and theater.

A bissele Glik

Lithuania, 1941, during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of texts on Jewish culture, stolen by the Germans, are gathered in Vilnius to be classified, either to be stored or to be destroyed. A group of Jewish scholars and writers, commissioned by the invaders to carry out the sorting operations, but reluctant to collaborate and determined to save their legacy, hide many books in the ghetto where they are confined. This is the epic story of the Paper Brigade.

Set in Berlin and New York's Lower East Side, The Great Yiddish Love stars the self-exiled Marlene Dietrich and her Nazi-endorsed replacement, Zarah Leander. It is a melodrama of love, emigration, and betrayal reassembled from Hollywood, German Ufa and Yiddish films from the 1930s and 40s.

An upbeat, witty, and timely exploration of a global community of artists creating innovative work in their quest to rediscover and revitalise the endangered Yiddish language. From behind-the-scenes with an acclaimed Yiddish-language version of Yentl in Melbourne, to enjoyably transgressive punk-Klezmer musicians, and Barrie Kosky’s latest trailblazing production in Berlin – the endangered Yiddish language is alive and well in this rousing documentary. The language originated amongst the Jewish community in Eastern Europe, but almost disappeared when more than half of the world’s Yiddish speakers were murdered during the Holocaust. Most of the artists and performers (aka Yiddishists) in the film didn’t grow up speaking Yiddish, but all have found solace, identity, and inspiration in its rich traditions and culture. Ros Horin has mapped a fascinating cultural history.

Based her grandfather’s boyhood in St. Louis, Yasmin Gorenberg tells a story of the pain passed from refugee parents to their children and the hope that can overcome it. “40 Nickels” captures the image of a generation of immigrants to the United States in the 1920’s and 1930’s and through that spotlights the effects of the 1919 pogroms in Eastern Europe. This is a film about parents and children: how trauma never leaves a family, and how hope and resilience is also passed down. It asks the question: Can a new generation look at the world with wonder rather than fear?

Motel, a poor laborer, loving husband and new father, leads cloakmakers in a strike for better working conditions. When he is severely injured by strikebreakers, his wife, Esther, and infant son are left destitute. Desperate to save her starving child, Esther gives him up for adoption to a wealthy couple, and then commits suicide. The richly-rendered beautiful Yiddish songs by Sholem Secunda featuring Cantor Leibele Waldman and Joel Feig's famous choir are a good example of the bittersweet melodrama in the finest tradition of the Yiddish theater.

In this multiverse comedy about Alzheimer's, Nellie travels through alternate dimensions in search of her husband.

An immigrant worker at a pickle factory is accidentally preserved for 100 years and wakes up in modern day Brooklyn. He learns his only surviving relative is his great grandson, a computer coder who he can’t connect with.

In one continuous shot, SHTTL shows the lives, loves, and inner conflicts within a Yiddish speaking shtetl on the border between Ukraine and Poland - one day before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

The Man Without a World is credited to the legendary (and imaginary) 1920s Soviet director, Yevgeny Antinov. But the film is anything but old. In fact, Antinov himself is the creation of contemporary filmmaker Eleanor Antin. Her film is a moving, comic melodrama set in a typical shtetl (village) in Poland. The Jews’ struggle against poverty and racial hatred is complicated by their own division into hostile political factions of the religious orthodoxy, assimilationists, socialists, Zionists, anarchists and survivors. While the Jews of the shtetl pursue their loves, politics, religion, business and dreams for the future, the Angel of Death is ever near...

Raised in rural isolation by an extremist Hasidic sect, Chaim is torn between his devotion to his grandmother, an aging Holocaust survivor, and his attraction to a sexy blond in a Liberty car insurance ad.

In Madrid, a woman pursues the traces of a father she never knew.

A family’s history mirroring today’s chaotic world as 3 sons and their father are about to get together for the first time. A Serb, a Filipino, an African American and a Croat. A clash of religions, ages, skin colors and nationalities.

Restoration is a found-footage piece honouring Beau Dick's Copper Breaking ceremony on the steps of the BC Legislature during Idle No More in 2013.

The film brings to the screen the determination of the common man of Bangladesh to stand up to tyranny and win his priceless liberty back.

Description of the film making, samples of the production of two long films of Finland-Film in summer 1937. Both are Valentin Vaala's guitars from Hella Wuolijoki's plays: Juurako Hulda (1937) and Niskavuori Naisten (1938).

German musician Uwe Berkemer and the Caucasian Chamber Orchestra would like to deliver a peace message: the language of music is universal. It is indeed possible to perform together and live together in spite of different nationalities (ethnic groups, languages, religions and cultures) and even when at war with one another. The film would like to convey a universal message: you must believe in your own dreams. It doesn’t matter whether or not they come true, at least you will have tried.

"We're more popular than Jesus." John Lennon's statement caused a scandal. Yet it is just another chapter in the tumultuous history between rock music and religion. A history that began with Elvis's sinful hip-shaking and continues today with the revival of Christian rock. A 60-year story that brings together deified singers, gurus, hippies, metalheads, punks, fundamentalist priests, and stars who died too young...

The Near East Foundation, known initially as Near East Relief, spearheaded this first great mobilization of international humanitarian assistance in the United States, in September 1915, in response to the Armenian Genocide. Driven by the conviction that ordinary citizens had the collective power to save the lives of people coping with adversity, the organization's efforts helped save more than one million lives.