ARTS&LIFE FILM
LEFT: Forgiveness. CENTER: From Cairo to the Cloud: The World of the Cairo Geniza. RIGHT: Carol Kane (Hester Street) and Amy Irving (Crossing Delancey) will discuss their memories of working with pioneering director Joan Micklin Silver May 23.
A Feast of Films
The Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival will be presented online. SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
F
rom a documentary about finding and remotely circulating priceless historical documents to a fictional comedy about bumbling bank robbers, this year’s Lenore Marwil Detroit Jewish Film Festival, running May 2-23, offers virtual viewers a variety of cinematic themes and relevant speakers.
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APRIL 29 • 2021
On the serious end of the spectrum, From Cairo to the Cloud: The World of the Cairo Geniza explains how a cache of medieval materials was uncovered in the storeroom (geniza) of an Egyptian synagogue (Ben Ezra), divided mostly between Cambridge University in England and the Jewish Theological Seminary
(JTS) in New York and made available to interested researchers through the web. David Kraemer, director of the JTS library and JTS professor of Talmud and rabbinics, appears in the film and will be interviewed online about the movie content and implications of the materials. On the comedic end of the spectrum, Forgiveness explores evolving reconciliation attitudes of two inept conspirators, one who is imprisoned and one who gets away. The Israeli film, with English subtitles, is produced by Adar Shafran, who spoke remotely to Michigan audiences when an earlier festival presented his production Douze Points. This year’s event breaks away from the web for one evening (Thursday, May 6) by offering a drive-in opportu-
nity showcasing classic Marx Brothers films. The closing night (Sunday, May 23) presents a remote discussion by award-winning actors Carol Kane (Hester Street) and Amy Irving (Crossing Delancey) as they remember working with pioneering director Joan Micklin Silver. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE “From Cairo to the Cloud does an exceptional job in telling about what is arguably one of the most significant historical discoveries of the last century-and-a-half,” said Kraemer, who will be interviewed by Susan Adelman, Michigan author of After Saturday Comes Sunday, which examines the history of Christian and Jewish communities in Mideast countries. “We have samples of every-
