The Middle East Institute, MEALAC and the East Central European Center invite you to an evening with film director Roni Aboulafia
We will screen two of her films, both of which premiered at the 2004 Jerusalem Film Festival. Discussion will follow.
Ida Fink-Traces (Israel 2004, 50 minutes)
A film by Roni Aboulafia and Uri Cohen (Hebrew/Polish with English subtitles)
The writer Ida Fink was born in Zbaraz, (now in Ukraine), to a Jewish family. On the eve of World War II she began to study music at the Lvov Conservatory. In 1941, under the Nazi occupation, Ida Fink survived 4 selections and worked as a forced laborer. With the liquidation of the ghetto, she and her sister disguised themselves as Polish peasants and fled to Germany where they survived until the end of the war in constant danger of being identified. In 1957, she immigrated to Israel with her sister, father and husband Brunek, a survivor of four camps. She has written one novel Podroz (THE JOURNEY) (1990) and two collections of stories Skrawek Czasu (A SCRAP OF TIME) (1987), and Slady (TRACES) (1996) and was honored with the Anne Frank Prize in 1985.
The film follows Ida on a vacation trip to the Galilee, accompanied by Uri, a young writer who wants to understand her past. The film moves between the hills of the Galilee, the kitchen and the porch and between Hebrew, Israeli, and Polish literature focusing on Ida and the history that she embodies in her life and writing. Above all this is an attempt to touch the coattails of a great artist.
Followed by a short:
Meet Michael Oppenheim
Michael Shlomo Oppenheim is one year old. Through a series of family portraits we get a picture of the people, the exploits and the genes that brought Michael to the world and the world, as it is, to Michael. Faces that together tell the story of the Jews in the twentieth century and the story of the State of Israel. The face of us all: fighters, victims, human beings.
Roni Aboulafia is a graduate of Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem, Israel. She regularly directs for TV magazine shows and entertainment programs in Israel.
Uri Cohen is an Israeli writer and teaches Israeli literature and culture at Columbia