Jewish Film Fest wraps with two gripping indie dramas
Bozeman’s fifth annual Jewish Film Festival concludes with a pair of screenings that look to different periods of history. Red Cow is next up on Wednesday, July 3rd. The Light of Hope closes the 2019 slate on Wednesday, July 17th. Both will begin at 7pm at the Procrastinator Theater in the Strand Union Building on the Montana State University campus. Admission is free and open to the public.
From Tsivia Barkai-Yacov, Red Cow is a coming-of-age story that takes place in the days leading up to the assassination of Rabin. The film depicts the life of Benny, 16, orphaned from mother at birth and the only child of Joshua – a religious, right-wing extremist, in those critical junctures when she is forming her sexual, religious and political awareness.
The Light of Hope is based on the true story of Elisabeth Eidenbenz (1913-2011) and her female co-workers who saved the lives of almost 600 infants in World War II. In the early 1940s, refugees from all over Europe sought shelter in southwestern France, escaping persecution from the Nazis and from Franco’s regime in Spain. Among them were countless women, some pregnant, and their little children. The camps were in horrendous shape with refugees holding out with no protection from the cold.
Eidenbenz, a young Red Cross nurse, transforms an old villa into a birth clinic, saving the lives of mothers and children from certain death. Despite all hardship, the villa becomes a safe haven resounding with children’s laughter. But soon, threats from without and within take shape: Authorities in Nazi-occupied France demand that she hand over all Jewish refugees and their children, while Eidenbenz’s deputy Victoria sides with the Résistance partisans – a worthy cause but one that puts the lives of everyone in the maternity clinic at stake.
The Jewish Film Festival is organized and sponsored by Congregation Beth Shalom, along with MSU’s Jewish Student Association, MSU Diversity and Inclusion Student Commons, and Bozeman Film Society. Learn more at www.bethshalombozeman.org. •
