ROVING EYE FILM FESTIVAL’S SPRING FILM/SPEAKER SERIES ON THE JEWISH EXPERIENCE

WHAT: The Jewish Experience Program at the 14^th Annual Roving Eye International Film Festival

WHEN: April 9, 10 & 14, 2019

WHERE: Global Heritage Hall, Room 01, Roger Williams University, 1 Old Ferry Road, Bristol, RI

WHO: Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF) and Roger Williams University (RWU)

HOW MUCH: This is a Free Event

WHY: To Celebrate The Jewish Experience Through The Art of International Filmmaking.

Roger Williams University (RWU) has partnered with the Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF) to present its Spring-edition of the bi-annual Roving Eye International Film Festival. The popular and acclaimed Festival celebrating global cinema and artists, announces its 2018 Spring sidebar program on The Jewish Experience through short films, documentary, media and guest speakers. This year’s Jewish Experience theme is “ARTS AND CULTURE: Storytelling Through Time,” and is presented by a grant from the Edwin S. Soforenko Foundation.

The event takes place April 9, 10 & 14^th. This year’s programming explores representations of the Jewish experience in Israel, across the globe and the Holocaust through 12 premiere films, including sneak peeks of films that will play the Rhode Island International Film Festival in August. The series is hosted by the Rev. Nancy Hamlin Soukup, University Multifaith Chaplain at RWU and a conversation with Andrew Lund, filmmaker /screenwriter/entertainment lawyer. All programming will take place at Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI. The series is free and open to the public!

The programming for the Spring 2019 Roving Eye Film Festival can be found at this URL: http://www.film-festival.org/RovingEye.php

“Through film and scholarship, this series tells the stories of the Jewish experience globally—stories of joy, sorrow, faith, a rich culture, Diasporas, fear and ultimately, hope,” said the Rev. Nancy

Hamlin Soukup, co-organizer of the event with Flickers.

The Spring 2019 Jewish Experience sidebar of the Roving Eye International Film Festival is presented in partnership with Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival, the Edwin S. Soforenko Foundation, RWU School of Humanities, Arts and Education, Dean CynthiaScheinberg, the RWU Department of Communication, Graphic Design and Web Development, Dr. Roxanne O’Connell, Department Chair, The RI Film & the Television Office; WSBE Rhode Island PBS; Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, Edge Media Network, RWU Hillel, THE RWU HAWK’S HERALD, The RWU Musician’s Guild, The RWU Inter-Residence Hall Association (IRHA) and the RWU American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and the Spiritual Life Office.

THE DRIVER IS RED | Directed by: Randall Christopher | 15 min. United States, 2017

An incredible true story of espionage, personal tragedy, and the triumph of justice.

THE CAREGIVER | Directed by: Ruthy Pribar | 12 min. Israel, 2018

Following a short trip to visit his family back in India, Raj returns to Israel and his work as caregiver to an elderly man, only to be greeted by a Filipino woman who seems to have taken over his job. When it becomes clear that the old man prefers a female presence around the house, Raj must find a way to reclaim what he feels is rightfully his.

WILD | Directed by: Uriel Sinai | 60 min. Israel, 2018

The fine line between the Human World and the non-Human world is not drawn in harmony. The Wild Animal Hospital is that line and when wild animals arrive there, they are usually broken, poisoned or starving. This is a film about the small group of people that spend their life trying to save those animals, while knowing that in many cases, the animals will not survive in the wild, forcing the doctors and caretakers to make tough decisions.

A WUNDER MEISSE | Directed by: Leila Fenton | 14 min. Israel, 2017

Two embroiled brothers meet again in the afterlife… and tested.

WIR SIND WIEDER DA – WE’RE BACK AGAIN |Directed by: Shirel Peleg | 8 min. Germany, 2018

The current generation is trying to live life surrounded by ruins of the past. WE’RE BACK AGAIN depicts one exemplary situation the new generation of Jews experience when trying to build new life in Germany.

IT HAPPENED AND TOOK PLACE RIGHT HERE. VOLKHARD KNIGGE AND BUCHENWALD | Directed by: Siegfried Ressel | 25 min. Germany, 2017

What kind of societal relevance does a memorial place of a former concentration camp have 72 years after the end of the war? The historian Volkhard Knigge has been the director of the Buchenwald memorial foundation for the past 20 years. Time and again he reflects upon the meaning and significance of this place of remembrance.

THE HAPPIEST MAN | Directed by: Jasmin Lord Gassmann | 55 min. Germany, 2017

“The Happiest Man“ tells the story of a personal journey. A 24-year old woman flies from 2 Germany to Sydney, Australia, to portrait the 94-year-old Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku, who after more than thirty years of silence speaks to people from all walks of life about his experience. By sharing his life story he transforms the pain of the past into joy and happiness and teaches especially younger generations how happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times.

COMPARTMENTS | Directed by: Daniella Koffler | 15 min. Germany, Israel, 2017

Netta, a young Israeli woman wishes to immigrate to Berlin. Her father, the son of Holocaust survivors, is horrified by her decision to live in the land that killed her ancestors. He refuses to speak to her again if she leaves. Based on Daniella Koffler’s personal story, ‘Compartments’ is the first German-Israeli animation coproduction explores collective memories of the Holocaust in the third generation, and how they shape both sides in ways we cannot predict.

PAT STEIR: ARTIST | Directed by: Veronica Gonzalez Peña | 80 min. USA, 2018

Although Pat Steir is best recognized for her mesmerizing dripped, splashed, and poured “waterfall” paintings, which she developed in the late 1980s, she has been at the forefront of American painting for decades, with an artistic practice that spans half a century.

In Pat Steir: Artist, Steir herself evokes her childhood in New Jersey, her young adulthood in NY, and her deep friendships and alliances with the most groundbreaking artists and poets of her generation, including her longterm partner, and founder of conceptual art, Sol Lewitt, the legendary composer John Cage, the seminal painter, Agnes Martin, the great poet Anne Waldman, and the groundbreaking French philosopher Sylvere Lotringer.

Pat Steir: Artist is a deeply intimate portrait of the artist by novelist/ filmmaker Veronica Gonzalez Peña. Shot over the course of two and a half years, Gonzalez Peña has compiled over 30 hours of deep and personal conversations with Steir. The warmth and closeness the women feel for each other comes across clearly in this highly unique portrait of the great painter. Pat Steir: Artist is a poetic visual exploration on creativity and process, on what it is to live an artistically engaged life. Primarily shot in Steir’s home and studio, the film provides an intimate, profound, and revelatory portrait of a groundbreaking female woman artist in her world.

4:15 p.m. Global Heritage Hall, Room 01

I HAVE A MESSAGE FOR YOU | Directed by: Matan Rochlitz | 13 min. Italy, 2017

To escape Auschwitz, she left her father to die. Decades later, she got a message from him.

THE MAESTRO | Directed by: Adam Cushman | 94 min. USA, 2017

Mentor to some of Hollywood’s most celebrated musical talents (Henry Mancini, Randy Newman, Andre Previn), Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco composed music for over 200 films. He got credit for 7. The Maestro explores Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s life through his relationship with his student, Jerry Herst, a talented but insecure musician who struggles to make a career for himself in post-war Hollywood.

Andrew Lund, filmmaker and entertainment lawyer. Andrew is an Associate Professor and Director of the Integrated Media Arts MFA Program in the Film & Media Department at Hunter College of the City University of New York and a Faculty Associate at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute; he is also a faculty member of the Film Studies Department at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and has taught in the Graduate Film Division of Columbia University, where he received J.D., M.F.A. and B.A. degrees. “Brief Reunion,” a feature film that Andrew produced and co-edited, won the top prize for narrative filmmaking at the 2011 UFVA conference and the Audience Award for Best Film at New York’s 2011 Gotham International Film Festival. “My Last Day Without You,” on which Andrew served as executive producer, won the top producing honors at the 2011 Brooklyn International Film Festival and was released theatrically in Europe. Andrew is the Executive Producer of nine feature films, including “The Hungry Ghosts,” written and directed by Michael Imperioli; “Vanaja,” named by Roger Ebert as one of the top five foreign films of 2007, and “Arranged,” an international hit that Variety called “a pure pleasure to watch” Andrew has also written and directed five award winning short films. In addition to worldwide festival screenings and television broadcasts, his shorts are included in film textbooks, DVD compilations, and distributed theatrically and non-theatrically. Andrew founded and curates CinemaTalks, the independent film screening and discussion series, and he created the Short Film Repository, which houses educational extras that support short filmmaking. Andrew’s writing on film includes an essay, “What’s a Short Film, Really?” in “Swimming Upstream: A Lifesaving Guide to Short Film Distribution” by Sharon Badal, numerous book reviews for the journal, Film International, and two books on independent filmmaking in the works for Peter Lang Publishers.

For more information, contact the Spiritual Life Program at Roger Williams University, email nsoukup@rwu.edu. Directions to Roger Williams University can be found at www.rwu.edu

All programming for the Festival has been produced by students in the Curation and Film Production Class that includes: Faisal A. Almowisheer, Adam Carceller, Adam E. Charles, Augusto L. Gardel, Kaitlin R. Kowalik, Alexandra E. Lindell, Allison K. McPhail, Alicia Moore, Philip G. Neamonitis, Colin P. Quaglino, Kayla S. Sokolowski, Cynthia O. Souza, Chelsea M. Wieland, Piper K. Wilber, Peyton S. Williams, and Gabrielle W. Wilson.

To see a listing of this year’s programming and to learn more about the Roving Eye International Film Festival, go to: http://www.film–festival.org/RovingEye.php