|
2011 WJFF VISIONARY AWARD HONORING AVIVA KEMPNER
The
annual award recognizes and pays tribute to courage, creativity and
insight in presenting the diversity of the Jewish experience through the
moving image. We are honored to name as the 2011 WJFF Visionary Award
recipient "our own" Aviva Kempner. In conjunction with the award, the
WJFF is presenting a retrospective of several of Kempner's films--Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (December 9 at 1:00 pm, free screening), The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (December 11 at 2:30 pm) and Partisans of Vilna (below). Kempner also will present and discuss her newest project, The Rosenwald Schools,
at a work-in-progress screening and discussion (December 11 at 10:30).
The filmmaker will appear at all screenings of her work.
VISIONARY AWARD EVENT
> Award presentation with surprise guests
> Film followed by a program - Kempner in conversation with Sharon Pucker Rivo, Co-Founder and Executive Director, The National Center for Jewish Film
> Reception in the Ina and Jack Kay Community Hall
25th Anniversary Screening of
PARTISANS OF VILNA
USA, 1986, documentary
130 minutes
English, Yiddish and Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Josh Waletzky
Producer: Aviva Kempner
Their
motto was, "We will not allow them to take us like beasts to the
slaughter." This riveting tale of the Vilna Ghetto’s Jewish armed
resistance explores the struggle to organize under anarchic conditions,
and the successes and failures of the movement. The film incorporates
rare archival footage, newsreels, songs and contemporary interviews with
40 survivors of the Ghetto to paint a vivid portrait of this
little-known heroic chapter of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel called the
film “Enlightening, truthful, challenging, heartbreaking... one of the
best and most eloquent documentaries on the suffering and dilemmas Jews
faced."
CO-SPONSORED BY Women in Film and Video-DC
THANK YOU TO OUR FESTIVAL CO-SPONSORS
... AND OUR DAY SPONSORS
• JACOB AND CHARLOTTE LEHRMAN FOUNDATION Opening Night Sponsor
• THE CROSSCURRENTS FOUNDATION Closing Night Sponsor
• ESTELLE FRIEDMAN GERVIS FAMILY FOUNDATION
• LOUIE AND RALPH DWECK
• THE ARTHUR TRACY “THE STREET SINGER” ENDOWMENT FUND
Israel programming through the Arts is supported by a priority grant from
The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington
|