Jewish Cinema at 10th Boulder International Film Festival

The tenth annual Boulder International Film Festival, being held here February 13-16, will show 35 features and 24 short films on a huge variety of topics. Two films will be of special interest to the Jewish Community. Tickets are $12/$10 seniors and students.

“Ida”
Poland, Feature Film, 2013, 80 min
Direct to BIFF from Sundance 2014
“An astonishing work, both graceful and haunting.” Sundance Film Festival

Anna, an orphan raised in a convent, is preparing to take her vows when she’s sent to visit Wanda, her aunt and only living relative. A cynical, hard-drinking Communist Party judge, Wanda reveals that Anna’s real name is Ida and that her parents were Jews murdered during the Nazi occupation. The two embark on an unusual journey through the wintry countryside to unearth their family’s dark history. The film’s beautiful black-and-white imagery is so artfully composed that every frame belongs in an exhibition. The setting—a somber 1960s Poland—suggests an austere combination of Catholicism, Communism and the Holocaust. But the film is vibrant and intimate and shares a subtle portrait of two fascinating, contrasting women: the sheltered Ida, who is exploring her faith, and Wanda, who—having seen the worst of humanity—has no faith left. Polish, subtitled in English. 80 minutes
Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski
Boulder Premiere

Screening will be Friday, February 14 at 2:30 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church
Purchase tickets

“Omar”
Nominated for a 2014 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Winner of “Un Certain Regard Prize” at the Cannes Film Festival 2013
Omar is accustomed to dodging surveillance bullets to cross the separation wall to visit his secret love, Nadia. But occupied Palestine knows neither simple love nor clear-cut war. On the other side of the wall, the sensitive young baker Omar becomes a freedom fighter who must face painful choices about his life. When Omar is captured after a deadly act of resistance, he falls into a cat-and-mouse game with the military police. Suspicion and betrayal jeopardize his longtime trust with accomplices and childhood friends Amjad and particularly Tarek, who is Nadia’s militant brother. Omar’s feelings quickly become as torn apart as the landscape, and it’s soon evident that everything he does is for his love of Nadia.
Hebrew and Arabic, subtitled in English. 96 minutes
Directed by Hany Abu-Assad
Colorado Premiere

Screening on Saturday, February 15 – 12:15pm at the Boulder High Theater
Purchase tickets