Technically, the
annual Jewish FilmFest, put on by the Mandel Jewish Community Center of
Cleveland, marks a full decade in 2016. With the asterisk that this week-plus
of Israeli and international Judaica cinema is somewhat of a successor to the
old Cleveland-Israeli Film Festival of about two decades ago, which brought to
the area the rarely-screens films from the Tel Aviv movie industry.
After that had
lain fallow into the early 2000s, the Mandel JCC Cleveland Jewish Film Fest began,
and broadened that mission to include fiction and nonfiction, shorts and
features, live-action and animation, from all over the world.
Screening venues
are primarily at the Cedar Lee, but with additional showings at Shaker Square, University
Circle, the Parma-Snow Public Library and the Mandel JCC itself.
Besides the
imports from Israel, the 2016 milestone has entries from France, Poland, the
Czech Republic and even the United States. But, yes, it is from France that we
are receiving the definitive documentary on the American screen (and underrated
filmmaking innovator) JERRY LEWIS: THE MAN BEHIND THE CLOWN, presumably in
English, showing on Sept. 11 at the Cedar Lee.
