The festival presents works by filmmakers from the former Soviet Union that explore the experience of immigration and the search for a new cultural identity, while celebrating their artistic achievements in film media. In the spirit of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the special guest of this year's festival is Boris Maftsir, author of The Unknown Holocaust series, which uncovers the forgotten places of massacres on the territory of the former USSR and features accounts by local eyewitnesses. The first film of the festival, however, Here and Now by Roman Shumunov, deals with contemporary reality as it depicts the life of underprivileged Russian-speaking immigrant youth in a provincial Israeli town.
PROGRAM
2 PM | Opening remarks
2:15 PM | Here and Now by Roman Shumumov
Israel 2018 | 90 min | Drama | Russian, Hebrew and English subtitles
A social drama narrated by four young immigrant friends living in a poor neighborhood in the Israeli city of Ashdod. Surviving from day to day, they form a rap group and devote their time to rehearsals for the upcoming international music festival. They believe that winning the music competition will allow them to make their voice heard to change their harsh reality. Their dream to take part in the competition seems shattered by the crisis in the family of Andrei, the main character. Such chores as taking care of his father, who has been in hospital for several months, being responsible for his younger sister and for mortgage payments, deprive him of the opportunity to continue rehearsing. The search for a solution leads him into the world of organized crime, but his bandmates are desperate to help him, risking not only their dreams, but also their lives.
4:00 PM | The Road to Babi Yar by Boris Maftsir
Israel 2018 | 107 min | Documentary | Ukrainian, Russian, English, Hebrew with English & Hebrew subtitles | USA Premiere
The Germans invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. This film tells the story of how and why, during the first months of the German offensive in the Ukraine, the mass extermination of Jews across hundreds of mass murder sites developed – and Babi Yar became their symbol. The killing Aktion of more than 30,000 Jews in Kiev began on the hundredth day of the German attack on the Soviet Union.
4:50 PM | Drawers of Memory by Boris Maftsir
Israel 2016 | 80 min | Documentary | Latvian, Hebrew, German with English and Hebrew subtitles
In his sixth film of the project about the Shoah in the Former Soviet Union, filmmaker Boris Maftsir set out on a journey to uncover the memory of the Holocaust in Latvia, where he was born and lived until he made aliya to Israel in 1971. The “drawers of memory” open as the search exposes the complex history of Latvian Jews: before, during and after the Holocaust. They include an attempt to compile a full and detailed list of all Jews present in Latvia on the eve of WWII; the work of the Latvian “guardians of memory” who pursued the idea of recalling the image of their former Jewish neighbors; the personal "drawer" of Boris Maftsir's own memory.
7:15 PM | The Award ceremony of Boris Maftsir
Discussion with Boris Maftsir moderated by Oleg Sulkin