Now in its 21st year, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival remains as committed as ever to projecting every facet of the Jewish identity. This year’s programme consists of an eclectic mix of films in a multitude of genres and formats, from silent to animated. The documentaries alone cover a huge number of subjects, ranging from Neil Diamond, to Serge Gainsbourg, to Roman Polanski, and even to the history of the popular Jewish song “Hava Nagila.”
The festival opens on Thursday with a screening of the provocative Cowjews and Indians, in which filmmaker Marc Halberstadt attempts to “cut out the middle man” by enlisting Native Americans to take back his ancestors’ land in Germany. Here are a few other films worth seeking out during the festival’s run.
Any documentary about former New York City mayor Ed Koch (who was Jewish) is bound to chronicle not only the person, but also the city he served from 1978 to 1989. As such, Koch (Showtimes) provides a fascinating look at how an irrepressible man, though not without his faults, helped steer a metropolis through a turbulent period in its history. From savvy political maneuvering—like a decision to deceptively position one of Koch’s female friends during his mayoral campaign to fend off persistent rumours of homosexuality—to his lasting legacy of housing reform, the film uses old footage and interviews with biographers, journalists, and key figures (including Koch himself) to recreate history.
It’s easy to see how someone who paraded around with such pompous bluster and such an solicitous catchphrase (“How’m I doing?”) could make for an ideal leader. Even so, director Neil Barsky doesn’t shy away from asking the hard questions. Koch expresses genuine regret for some of his unpopular decisions while in office. In light of the ex-mayor’s death earlier this year at age eighty-eight, it’s fortunate that we now have this lasting testament to all of his chutzpah and ragged charm.
A gleefully irreverent mash-up of comedy and horror, with light doses of sci-fi and romance thrown in, Cats on a Pedal Boat (Showtimes), an Israeli production, is pure cinematic nerd candy. Using an aesthetic that marries the deadpan sensibilities of Wes Anderson with the silly (and economical) brand of the macabre typified by B-movie producer Roger Corman, the film manages to be dazzling and hilarious. In a playful subversion of The Princess Bride, it opens with a punk kid refusing to be subjected again to his grandfather’s boring stories. Instead, the kid launches into an improvised yarn about a young couple in love.
The couple takes a trip to a lake where they defy the rules by bringing along a cat in their pedal boat—a decision that leads to the cat jumping into the water and vanishing. How exactly the lake being polluted by toxic waste and a deranged man known as “The Admiral” factor into the story are discoveries that shouldn’t be spoiled. One of the highlights is when a group of derelict Sea Scouts attempt to save the day, only to get distracted by arguments over things like who in the group should be allowed to wear a bow tie. In a piece of inspired programming, the feature will be presented with the short film Poisoned, a lively and funny zombie tale set at a military base.
With his magnetic turn in God’s Neighbors (Showtimes), Roy Assaf taps into a fundamental struggle between leading a solemn life of religious servitude and violently imposing those beliefs on anyone who refuses to do the same. His character, an Israeli man named Avi, is certainly not a bad guy by any means. He helps out regularly at his father’s fruit store and composes religious trance music that he distributes to a rabbi who excitedly blasts the tunes from his van. But when a group of drunken louts insists on partying outside his window during Shabbat, he feels obliged to force them to adhere to the day-of-rest custom by any means necessary.
This inner conflict even extends to his relationship with a young woman in his neighbourhood, Miri (Rotem Zussman), whom he initially confronts about baring too much skin, before taking tentative steps towards romance. It’s this recurring tension that allows Assaf and writer-director Meny Yaesh to create a complex character whose motivations are never quite as black and white as they appear to be.