Gold Lead Sponsor: Mittleman Jewish Community Center and Portland Jewish Academy
Community Partner: Reboot and Eastside Jewish Commons
Nathan-ism: At the end of World War II, Nathan Hilu, the son of Syrian Jewish immigrants to New York received a life-changing assignment from the U.S. Army: to guard the top Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials. This experience fueled a lifetime of artistic inspiration for Nathan, a virtually unknown “outsider artist”, who spent the next 70 years obsessively creating a visual narrative from his memories. But what happens when those memories take on a life of their own?

The Anne Frank Gift Shop: We’re living in dark times. Anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise and fascism is somehow making a comeback. The short film The Anne Frank Gift Shop takes aim at a very real problem—a generation with little awareness of the Holocaust—and attempts to solve it with humor this audience understands. But the laughs soon give way to the film’s essential message. As one of the characters says, “We need to tell this story again and again and again—every which way we can—or it will happen again.” Nathan-ism is 1 hour and 20 minutes and The Anne Frank Gift Shop is 15 minutes in length.

Talk Back Speakers

Andrea Stolowitz is a three-time winner of the Oregon Book Award in drama and a recipient of the prestigious New York City Mayor’s Office Women in Theatre/Film/TV gran which supported the New York premiere of her play “The Berlin Diaries”. The LA Times calls Andrea’s work “heartbreaking” and the Orange County Register characterizes her approach as a “brave refusal to sugarcoat issues and tough decisions.” Andrea was the recipient of the Fowler/Levin $25,000 New Play Commission from Artists Repertory Theatre for her play “Ithaka”. Andrea is currently a resident playwright at New Dramatists in New York City and the Playwright-in-Residence at OJMCHE.

Steven Wasserstrom recently retired from Reed College, where he served as the Moe and Izetta Tonkon Professor of Judaic Studies and the Humanities at Reed College since 1987.

Thank you to our sponsors: Rosalind Babener, Cedar Sinai Park, Congregation Beth Israel, Congregation Shir Tikvah, Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, Elizabeth Menashe, Mittleman Jewish Community Center, Multnomah County Cultural Coalition / Oregon Cultural Trust, Oregon Israel Fund*, Oregon Jewish Community Foundation, Oregon Public Broadcasting, Portland Jewish Academy, Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Family Fund of OJCF / Jordan Schnitzer*, Leonard & Lois Schnitzer Charitable Supporting Foundation*, Schwartz Charitable Foundation, Diane Solomon, Travel Portland, and Carolyn and Gary Weinstein*.

*Support provided via a philanthropic fund of OJCF

Tickets

Full festival passes are no longer available. This screening will be virtual. All ticket holders will get an email on Sunday, January 21 at noon with information on how to access the films and the talk back on January 24. The films will be available from noon on January 21 to noon on January 23.