Edit

Teaneck International Film Festival 2023

Arts and Entertainment

October 11, 2023

From: Teaneck International Film Festival

Schedule

November 5, 2023


1:30 pm : Kid Flicks One

ANIMATED SHORTS - 63 MINUTES (AGES 5 – 10)
Description: Let your imagination take the wheel with Kid Flicks One. Whether dreaming up the fantastical, like a spider’s goal to capture the moon, or the practical, like a young animator’s future stardom, these shorts are sure to enchant and delight all audiences (but especially our youngest!)

Sponsored by Puffin Foundation, Ltd.; Teaneck Public Library; Friends of the Teaneck Public Library; Barbara Ostroth, Coldwell Banker Realty

November 8, 2023

9:00 am : The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

DOCUMENTARY - 96 MINUTES
Directed by Johanna Hamilton and Yoruba Richen

Description: Delves deep into civil rights icon Rosa Parks' historic work and her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Through interviews with those who knew her, powerful archival footage, and her own words, the film tells the story of Parks' extensive organizing, radical politics, and lifelong dedication to activism.

Sponsored by Bergen County, NJ Chapter of The Links, Inc.

Talkback with civil rights activist Theodora Lacey

November 9, 2023

7:30 pm : Invisible Beauty

DOCUMENTARY  - 115 MINUTES
Directed by Bethann Hardison and Frederic Tcheng

Description: Fashion revolutionary Bethann Hardison looks back on her journey as a pioneering Black model, modeling agent, and activist, shining a light on an untold chapter in the fight for racial diversity. The film features Tracee Ellis Ross, Naomi Campbell, Tyson Beckford, Zendaya, Iman, Whoopi Goldberg, Fran Lebowitz, and Kadeem Hardison.

Sponsored by National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. Bergen / Passaic Chapter

November 10, 2023

7:30 pm : The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

DOCUMENTARY - 96 MINUTES
Directed by Johanna Hamilton and Yoruba Richen

Description: Delves deep into civil rights icon Rosa Parks' historic work and her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Through interviews with those who knew her, powerful archival footage, and her own words, the film tells the story of Parks' extensive organizing, radical politics, and lifelong dedication to activism.

Sponsored by Bergen County, NJ Chapter of The Links, Inc.

Talkback with civil rights activist Theodora Lacey

November 11, 2023

11:20 am : La Syndicaliste (The Sitting Duck)

DRAMA / THRILLER -  (SUBTITLES:  FRENCH) - 121 MINUTES
Directed by Jean-Paul Salome

Description: In 2012, the head union representative of a French multinational nuclear powerhouse becomes a whistle-blower, denouncing top-secret deals that shake the French nuclear sector. Alone against the world, Maureen Kearney fights government ministers and industry leaders to bring the scandal to light and defend more than 50,000 jobs. Based on a true story.

Sponsored by Adeline Wijnen

2:00 pm : Hungry to Learn

DOCUMENTARY  - 85 MINUTES
Directed by Geeta Gandbhir

Description: The cost of college is forcing students to make choices between eating regular meals and paying for their education. Co-produced by Soledad O’Brien, this poignant film follows four college students as they navigate food insecurity in their attempt to change their lives for the better.

Sponsored by Center for Food Action; Fairleigh Dickinson University

Talkback with Rashard Mills, FDU Campus Engagement & CFA Board Member; Lisa Pitz, CFA Hunger Free NJ; Sara Goldrick-Rab, featured in film & author of Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream.

4:25 pm : Viral Vignettes

COMEDY - 114 MINUTES
Directed by David Levin

Description: Twelve one-act comedies that introduce us to 21 unique characters - stuck at home during the pandemic, trying to make sense of an unprecedented situation, filled with strangeness and unexpected humor.

Talkback with David Levin

12:00 pm : Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project

DOCUMENTARY - 102 MINUTES
Directed by Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson

Description: Through intimate archival footage and visually innovative treatments of Nikki Giovanni’s poetry, the film pushes the boundaries of biographical documentary film by traveling through time and space to reveal the enduring influence of one of America’s greatest living artists and social commentators.

Sponsored by Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Bergen County Alumnae Chapter

12:00 pm : All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

DOCUMENTARY - 122  MINUTES
Directed by Laura Poitras

Description: Internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin’s personal fight to hold the Sackler pharmaceutical family accountable for the opioid crisis.  The story is told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage.

Sponsored by Jackie and Michael Kates

Talkback with Brian Kates, editor; Howard Gertler, producer

8:00 pm : The Old Oak

DRAMA - 113 MINUTES
Directed by Ken Loach

Description: The Old Oak is the last pub standing in a once thriving mining village in northern England, a gathering space for a community that has fallen on hard times. There is growing anger, resentment, and a lack of hope among the residents, but the pub and its proprietor TJ are a fond presence to their customers. When a group of Syrian refugees move into the floundering village, a decisive rift fueled by prejudices develops between the community and its newest inhabitants. The formation of an unexpected friendship between TJ and a young Syrian woman named Yara opens up new possibilities for the divided village in this deeply moving drama about loss, fear, and the difficulty of finding hope. Last film by legendary director Ken Loach.

November 12, 2023

4:35 pm : Alam

DRAMA (SUBTITLES: HEBREW, ARABIC) - 109 MINUTES
Directed by Firas Khoury

Description: Tamer and his friends lead a typical Palestinian student's life until the beautiful Maysaa arrives. To please her, Tamer agrees to take part in a mysterious operation on the eve of Israel's Independence Day, a mourning day for Palestinians.

2:15 pm : Cinema Sabaya

DRAMA - (SUBTITLES: HEBREW, ARABIC) - 91 MINUTES
Directed by Orit Fouks Rotem

Description: A group of Arab and Jewish women attend a video workshop at a community center run by Rona, a young filmmaker from Tel Aviv, who teaches them to document their lives. As each student shares footage from her home life with the others, their beliefs and preconceptions are challenged, and barriers are broken down. The group comes together as mothers, daughters, wives, and women living in a world designed to keep them apart, forming an empowering and lasting bond as they learn more about each other and themselves.

4:35 pm : Four Winters

DOCUMENTARY - 90 MINUTES
Directed by Julia Mintz

Description: Over 25,000 Jewish partisans fought back against the Nazis and their collaborators from deep within the forests of WWII's Eastern Europe, Ukraine, and Belarus. Against extraordinary odds, they escaped Nazi slaughter, transforming from young innocents to courageous resistance fighters. Shattering the myth of Jewish passivity, these last surviving partisans tell their stories of resistance.

Sponsored by Judith Distler; Phil Yucht; ; Jewish Community Council of Greater Teaneck

Talkback with Julia Mintz

12:00 pm : Faith Ringgold: Tell It Like It Is

BIOGRAPHY / HISTORY - 67 MINUTES
Description: Harlem-born artist, author and activist Faith Ringgold painted some of the most truthful and empowering representations of African Americans during the civil rights and women’s movements of the 1960s and 1970s. At the time, the art establishment dismissed her seminal American People series as political art by a woman, and a black woman at that. Now in her 90s and a resident of Englewood, New Jersey, Ringgold is considered one of the most important African American artists, whose work is increasingly relevant today.

Sponsored by Woman’s Club of Englewood; Teaneck - Englewood & Vicinity Club (NANBPWC, Inc.); Northern NJ Community Foundation

Talkback with Dorian Bergen, ACA Galleries; Dr. Michele Faith Wallace

2:15 pm : Shared Legacies

DOCUMENTARY - 95 MINUTES
Directed by Shari Rogers

Description:  The historical ties between Black and Jewish Americans began long before the Civil Rights era. Shared Legacies explores this significant alliance, sharing eyewitness accounts, interviews with civil rights leaders, including the late U.S. Representative John Lewis, and a treasure trove of archival footage. The film is a tribute to the pursuit of what Dr. King called a “coalition of conscience” and a celebration of partnership, as well as an urgent call to action for today.

Sponsored by Martin Luther King Birthday Committee; Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey; Teaneck Community Chorus

5:00 pm : Hollywood’s Orthodox Jew Problem

DOCUMENTARY  - 15 MINUTES
Directed by Allison Joseph

Description: This documentary short is the first of a three-part film laying out Hollywood’s mistreatment of Jews. The first part focuses on the Orthodox Jewish community. The film illustrates the uptick in antisemitism that has been on the rise recently and how dangerous it is now to be Jewish.

Talkback with Allison Joseph, Jew in the City; Mendy Pellin, Hasidic comedian

11:00 am : Vishniac

DOCUMENTARY - 90MINUTES
Directed by Laura Bialis

Description: Roman Vishniac is best known for having traversed Eastern Europe from 1935 through 1938, on assignment for the American Joint Distribution Committee, to photograph Jewish life in Eastern Europe.? The purpose of the photographs was to raise funds for impoverished Jewish communities.? Few predicted that less than a decade later, these communities would be wiped out, and Vishniac's photographs would provide the last visual records of an entire world.?But those photographs comprise only one chapter of his remarkable life. Vishniac was an avid scientist, and made considerable contributions in the field of?microscopic photography. His “Living Biology” series, funded by the National Science Foundation, were some of the first films depicting life through a microscope. He is credited as one of the founders of this field.?Now, for the first time, Vishniac’s life and work is explored in a feature-length documentary.

Sponsored by Jewish Standard

1:20 pm : The Devil’s Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes

DOCUMENTARY - 115 MINUTES
Directed by Yariv Mozer

Description: Only weeks before the trial of Adolf Eichmann began, transcripts of recorded conversations between Eichmann and a Dutch journalist, Willem Sassen, were mysteriously handed over to the prosecutor, Gideon Hausner.  During the trial, Eichmann tried to convince the judges that he was only a bureaucrat who carried out orders but, in the transcripts, Eichmann was found boasting and proud of his significant role in planning and executing the Final Solution.

Sponsored by The Jewish Link  

4:10 pm : Commitment to Life

DOCUMENTARY - 115 MINUTES
Directed by Jeffrey Schwarz

Description: In the early 1980s, a young doctor at UCLA reports a strange immune disorder among gay men -- the world's first warning sign of the epidemic to come. A committed group of activists helps care for the sick and dying while at the same time lobbying those in Hollywood to contribute to the fight.

Sponsored by Bergen New Bridge Medical Center LGBTQ+; National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. Bergen / Passaic Chapter; Vivian Scott Chew, in memory of her brother Lawrence Eric Murphy; YWCA Northern New Jersey

Talkback with Dr. Chris Awad and Finn Schubert of Bergen New Bridge Medical Center LGBTQ+

7:30 pm : Bella!

DOCUMENTARY - 102 MINUTES
Directed by Jeff L. Lieberman

Description: In 1970, when the United States was ruled by men, Bella Abzug challenged the status quo, running a successful campaign from the streets of Manhattan that elevated her all the way to the halls of Congress. With her trademark hat and Bronx swagger, Bella entered Congress swinging, battling for credit cards for women, equality for the LGBTQ community and trailblazing a path for leadership that reflected the broad diversity of the country.

Sponsored by Women of Wisdom (WOW); National Council of Jewish Women Bergen County Section (NCJW); Former NJ State Senator Loretta Weinberg; League of Women Voters of Teaneck

Talkback with Jeff L. Lieberman; Former NJ State Senator Loretta Weinberg

Date : November 5 - 12, 2023

Location :  Various Location in Teaneck, NJ

Click Here for More Information.