Steven Zeitchik
By Steven Zeitchik
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Culture Strangers in a Strange Land
Israeli cinema has made some notable strides over the past few years, thanks to a new generation of documentarians and the bohemian visions of the likes of Eytan Fox (“Walk on Water,” “The Bubble”) and Avi Nesher (the entertainingly ambitious “The Secret,” which may be the world’s first lesbian-Kabbalah-grrl power-yeshiva drama). These filmmakers have taken…
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Culture Looking Back at the Year in Pictures
Fateless Hungary Director: Lajos Koltai Sophie Scholl: The Final Days Germany Director: Marc Rothemund The Syrian Bride Israel Director: Eran Riklis In an era in which choice threatens to overwhelm us, the overlooked film has become all too common. Jewish-themed films are, in this sense, doubly cursed. They cross into so many categories that unearthing…
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Culture A Documentary Wrings Poetry From Politics
Almost as inevitable as the endless feature stories about the recent increase in political documentaries is the limpness of the films themselves. A strong documentary demands both surprising characters and a rich ethical imagination; make subjects’ impulses too obvious, as many of these films do, and you wind up with pamphleteering, pandering or Michael Moore….
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News Israeli Tennis Players Serve Up New Image
“The ball tails away from him when it’s on the far side of the court,” Jonathan Erlich whispers to his doubles partner, Andy Ram, as Ram gets ready to receive serve. Ram nods, lightly slaps his partner’s hand lightly and heads up to the net. A minute later, he is flicking a perfect backhand volley…
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Culture Lust, Faith and Phylacteries
‘Mendy: A Question of Faith” is cinematic proof that putting faith and sex in a movie doesn’t make the film about religion, and doesn’t necessarily make it sexy. In this cheesily staged feature, which is showing through May 26 at Cinema Village in Manhattan, the titular character (Ivan Sandomire) is a Satmar Hasid who has…
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Culture Tribeca Film Festival Offerings
From a small festival in the wake of 9/11, the Tribeca Film Festival has blossomed over the past four years into one of New York City’s most anticipated cultural events. This year, there are an unusually abundant number of films with Jewish themes, from a consideration of female Israeli soldiers (“Close to Home”) to an…
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Culture A Road Trip Through the Mideast Conflict
When he’s at his best, Israeli auteur Amos Gitai captures the peculiar pain, and paradox, of individuals filled with national yearning. What a person needs from a country and what a country needs from a person should not on its face have reason to overlap, and Gitai is obsessed with why — and what happens…
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Culture The Chosen People
Give Igal Hecht credit for trying. Making a movie about theology is tricky enough; making one about a fringe theology requires a miracle. In his ambitious but frustrating documentary, the Canadian filmmaker has taken on that perpetual urban curiosity, Jews for Jesus. By the choice of subject, one expects a flurry of proselytizing and street-side…
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