NJFF RECOMMENDED VIEWING CONTINUED
THE ART DEALER
RECOMMENDED BY NJFF CO-DIRECTOR, JACKIE ROTH KARR
At our 15th celebration, we showed the film The Art Dealer. .
The Mona Lisa left its home in the Musée du Louvre during World War II and traveled all over France, moving from one hiding place to the next.
As it turned out, the curators at the Louvre needn’t have been so concerned. When the Nazis occupied France in 1940, they made no effort to steal artworks from the Louvre or any other national museum. Instead, they raided private galleries owned by Jewish collectors and dealers. The Nazis stole thousands of artworks from French Jews, ultimately robbing France of more than a third of its privately owned art.
The Art Dealer is uniquely French perspective on a Jewish family’s tale of loss. A breathtaking 18th century painting on a crumbling Parisian wall ignites a noirish mystery and inspires a woman to delve into family secrets, long-buried memories and WWII-era government cover-ups in The Art Dealer, directed by François Margolin (The Flight of the Red Balloon). When her art dealer husband brings home a ravishing painting, Esther, played by Anna Sigalevitch (The Piano Teacher), thinks nothing of it, until her father is suddenly overcome with emotion at the sight of it. When he refuses to elaborate, Esther, a journalist by trade, turns into an amateur sleuth to solve the mystery of this painting presumably stolen from her Jewish family by Nazis. .
the women’s balcony
RECOMMENDED BY NJFF managing DIRECTOR, fran brumlik
One of my very favorite films available for us to watch is THE WOMEN'S BALCONY. Set in Israel on the day of a Bar Mitzvah, the women's balcony collapsed injuring all the women and putting the rabbis wife into a coma. A young Orthodox rabbi comes to lead the congregation in the interim but since he is inflexible to the wishes and needs of the women, they have to take charge and teach him about women's rights. This is a lovely film with some wonderful characters in it.
This film is especially meaningful in 2020 since we are marking the 100th anniversary of Women's Suffrage. And, as you all know Tennessee was the final state to adopt the amendment making it possible for women to vote and even hold political office.
the rape of europa
RECOMMENDED BY NJFF co-director, laurie eskind
I found this documentary, based on a book with the same name by Lynn H. Nicholas, fascinating and truly riveting. THE RAPE OF EUROPA tells the epic story of the systematic theft, deliberate destruction and miraculous survival of Europe’s art treasures during the Third Reich and World War II. In a journey through seven countries, the film takes viewers into the violent whirlwind of fanaticism, greed, and warfare that threatened to wipe out the artistic heritage of Europe. For twelve long years, the Nazis looted and destroyed art on a scale unprecedented in history. But heroic young art historians and curators from America and across Europe fought back with an extraordinary campaign to rescue and return the millions of lost, hidden and stolen treasures. Now, more than sixty years later, the legacy of this tragic history continues to play out as families of looted collectors recover major works of art, conservators repair battle damage, and nations fight over the fate of ill-gotten spoils of war. Joan Allen narrates this breathtaking chronicle about the battle over the very survival of centuries of western culture.