Las Vegas Weekly

Scanning the Jewish Film Festival’s schedule

Lemon Tree

“You don’t have to be ‘chosen’ to attend” is Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival director Joshua Abbey’s tongue-in-cheek way of saying that his event isn’t just for those who put away their menorahs last month. Indeed, the fest’s 17 films represent a wide range of subjects and approaches. A few to check out:

Jaffa

Killing Kasztner

The Wedding Song

Lemon Tree (January 14, 7 p.m., $10, Cinemark South Point) A fable about a woman determined to protect her lemon grove, which sits on the Israel/Palestine border. The New York Times called it “a wrenching, richly layered feminist allegory.”

Jaffa (January 16, 7 p.m., $10-$18, Adelson Educational Campus) Director Keren Yedaya’s previous film, Or (My Treasure), won several awards at Cannes, and Jaffa, the story of forbidden love between a Jewish woman and an Arab man, premiered at Cannes ’09.

Killing Kasztner (January 18, 6 p.m., $10, Adelson Educational Campus) Director Gaylen Ross will discuss her documentary about Israel Kasztner, a Hungarian who saved 1,700 fellow Jews by negotiating directly with Adolf Eichmann, and was then condemned as a traitor and assassinated.

The Wedding Song (January 23, 7 p.m., $10, Adelson Educational Campus) This drama about the friendship between Jewish and Arab teens in Tunisia during WWII is as much about how women are treated in traditional religious societies as the looming Nazi threat.

Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival January 14-31, times and prices vary. The Adelson Educational Campus Theater, Cinemark South Point, UNLV Greenspun Hall, desertspace.org/film_festival.