\”Jews are not cultured people,\” she complains. The other woman disagrees.\n\n\”They are cultured,\” she insists, \”they are just different.\”
The Liberty Film Festival, now in its third year, aims to present and promote the work of conservative filmmakers who, according to the organizers, are ignored, persecuted and otherwise absent from \”Hollywood.\”\n\nI put Hollywood in quotes because its meaning, as the evening at the Luxe Bel Air Hotel wore on, was elusive.
Theater with a historical lesson comes to The Other Space at Santa Monica Playhouse, with the guest production of \”Black and Bluestein.\” The dramedy written by Jerry Mayer takes place in early \’60s St. Louis, and tells the story of Jewish homeowner Jeff Bluestein and the issues he faces while deliberating whether to sell his home — in a largely white Jewish neighborhood — to a black family.
Cohen became first an accomplished poet and then, starting with 1967\’s \”Songs of Leonard Cohen\” (which contained the oft-recorded \”Suzanne\”) a singer-songwriter. According to Ira Nader\’s Cohen biography, \”Various Positions,\” Cohen\’s Judaism has influenced his songs greatly — \”Who By Fire\” is based on the melody of a Yom Kippur prayer, \”Mi Bamayim, Mi Ba Esh,\” and \”If It Be Your Will\” is derived from a \”Kol Nidre\” phrase.
Martin Scorsese has famously influenced a whole generation of American filmmakers, from Abel Ferrara and Quentin Tarantino to Rob Weiss and Nick Gomez. But his influence is not limited to filmmakers in this country.
The filmmaker, who is also Jewish, relates to her subjects because she was once obsessed with the scale.
Clara Khoury and Hiam Abbass star in \”The Syrian Bride,\” where bureaucracy is an uninvited guest.
Summing up her experience, Schramm observes, \”If we look at the headlines, we see generalities. But when we look at one individual, we see more deeply.
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