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L.A. Sephardic Film Festival fetes beloved Israeli entertainer

Attendees at the 2014 Los Angeles Sephardic Jewish Film Festival (LASJFF) will have to wait for the second night if they want Sephardic content.
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November 5, 2014

Attendees at the 2014 Los Angeles Sephardic Jewish Film Festival (LASJFF) will have to wait for the second night if they want Sephardic content. Unless, that is, the festival’s opening-night celebrity honoree decides to sing a Ladino song during his acceptance speech.

When you are operating a small film festival that plays every other year to a niche audience, you have a bit more flexibility over what you can and cannot do. For its opening-night gala, the LASJFF will present “Operation Sunflower,” a film that is neither made by a person of Sephardic descent, nor is in any way Sephardic in its subject matter. This slightly “off-mission” premiere represents a first for the festival, which began in 1997.

However, “Operation Sunflower” features beloved Israeli actor and entertainer Yehoram Gaon, who is both a proud Sephardi and the recipient of this year’s Cinema Sepharad Lifetime Achievement Award. Gaon will be in attendance to accept the award at the Nov. 9 screening at Paramount Pictures.

“We could have picked a whole host of other films that Yehoram Gaon has been in,” said Rabbi Daniel Bouskila, director of the Sephardic Educational Center (SEC), which produces the festival. “ ‘Kazablan’ would have been fun, but it’s 40 years old, and everybody has seen it. For a premiere opening night at Paramount, we didn’t want to screen a film that you can get on Netflix.”

Presented from the perspective of pioneering scientists, “Operation Sunflower” is inspired by true events, chronicling Israel’s decision to pursue nuclear weaponry in the face of threats from Iran. Gaon portrays the head of the Mossad.

Given the honoree’s background and his contributions to Israel’s entertainment industry, the film is almost beside the point. The Jerusalem-born Gaon has starred in, written and directed multiple films; he wrote “In the Middle of the Road” and edited “Spices From Spain,” a collection of Ladino quotes. With more than 20 albums running the gamut from Israeli songs to Ladino ballads, Gaon “basically put Ladino music on the map in the latter part of the 20th century,” Bouskila said.

“Some of our past honorees have received the Cinema Sepharad Award, because they were Sephardic, but not necessarily because they had done anything to promote the Sephardic heritage,” Bouskila continued. “This year we decided, ‘Let’s really try to find an honoree that promotes in his or her professional work what our mission really is.’ Yehoram Gaon was the classic choice.”

Interviewed by phone in Israel, Gaon said he is pleased by the recognition and hopeful that the LASJFF award — like his many other accolades — will help open up opportunities to showcase other deserving artists of Sephardic descent.

“I do believe that awards like this can encourage Ladino singers and actors to do more,” said Gaon, who will sandwich in a quick-hit visit to Los Angeles and return home two days later to assorted TV and radio commitments. “So I am very happy.”

The opening-night festivities kick off six days of eight feature film and documentary screenings, continuing through Nov. 16 at the Laemmle Music Hall Theater in Beverly Hills. Apart from “Operation Sunflower,” all of the films are very much in line with the festival’s — and the SEC’s — mission of representing the Sephardic experience. 

“The largely Ashkenazi narrative of American Jewry is ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ and bagels and lox. Sephardic Jews are still a minority in this country,” Bouskila said. “With a film festival like this one, we are trying to make sure that their story is included as a voice in the Jewish world in the United States.”

The geographic territory of the 2014 selections is particularly far-reaching, with films examining the experiences of Jews from India, Morocco, Iran, Rhodes, Yemen, France and — for the first time — Bukhara (via the documentary “Handa Handa 4”). The 2014 French film “24 Days” is based on a 2006 hate crime that rocked the country, while the closing-night film, “The Dove Flyer,” presented in Arabic, depicts an exodus of a Jewish community in Iraq.  

Not only are the films geographically diverse and wide-ranging in their subject matter, there were many options from which to choose. In fact, the submissions were so abundant this year that LASJFF programmers had several entries that they had to reject for 2014 but might be able to bank for future festival lineups.

“We could have had a whole other week of screening,” said Neil J. Sheff, president of the SEC. “This year we have five feature films, which is probably a record for us. I’m usually a lot more nervous and freaking out trying to find a balance of documentaries and feature films. I’m usually going after the films instead of them coming after me.”

Created by the SEC as an alternative to a traditional fundraising gala, the LASJFF has blossomed into a much-anticipated cultural event. In addition to introducing its audiences to a diverse lineup of films that they might otherwise not get to see, the event has included a student film competition and recognition of both filmmakers and community leaders and volunteers.

In addition to Gaon, the 2014 festival will honor Ronald J. Nessim with the Maimonides Leadership Award. Nessim is the son of SEC founder Jose Nessim, who died earlier this year. Ronald Nessim served as chairman of the SEC from 1997 to 2003 and continues to serve on the organization’s executive board. The festival will also present the Sephardic Legacy Award to longtime volunteers and supporters Joelle and Jack Rimokh.

 

FOR THE RECORD

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This article was updated to include the first name and title of Neil J. Sheff, president of the Sephardic Educational Center, which had been omitted in an earlier version.

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