National Center for Jewish Film Festival

Join us for a vibrant program of new film premieres and rare archive treasures best experienced on the big screen! All screenings will be in person.

Highlights include new films from Israel, Germany,  Australia and Italy. And the New England premiere of our Center’s 35mm restoration of the Yiddish feature film Mothers of Today starring Esther Field, the 1930s radio personality known as the “Yiddishe Mama.”

Schedule:

1:00pm - Blind at Heart

Based on Julia Franck’s International bestselling novel Die Mittagsfrau - winner of the German Book Prize and translated into 37 languages - Barbara Albert’s film adaptation is a richly textured portrait of one woman’s struggle to maintain selfhood in an increasingly hostile landscape. Hélène’s complexity is brought to life by the mesmerizing Mala Emde in this stirring drama.

Hélène arrives in Weimar-era Berlin as a young woman with aspirations of becoming a doctor. As the city’s carefree ambiance darkens and tragedy befalls her fiancé (Thomas Prenn), Hélène’s grief gives way to a determination to keep her half-Jewish lineage a secret. When a handsome Luftwaffe officer (Max von der Groeben) professes his love and offers her a forged Aryan identity, she accepts his offer-yet the steps she takes for self-preservation leads her down a difficult path.

Date: May 12-21, 2024