Seattle Metblog
The Seattle Jewish Film Festival continues this week with a bunch of great films. Three of them screen Thursday night and the SJFF is offering a 2 for 1 deal. Call the ticket hotline at 206.324.9996 or go to the box office (open 30 minutes prior to all screenings) and say “Get Reel, Is-reel” and you’ll be able to buy two tickets for the price of one. Three movies are screening today. Against the Tide, directed by Richard M. Trank and narrated by Dustin Hoffman, is called “a scathing indictment of US indifference to the Holocaust”. (3:30 pm) Michael Verhoeven will be on hand at the screening of his Human Failure to receive SJFF’s 1st Reel Difference Award. Human Failure is an examination of the Third Reich’s tax officials’ expropriation of assets and property of Jewish citizens. (5:30 pm) Rabbi Firer: A Reason to Question, directed by Amit Goren, is a look at Rabbi Elimelech Firer, “a 54-year-old Orthodox Jew self-educated in medicine” who helps patients “navigate their way through the tangled web of treatment.” Such is his influence that he can “change a patient’s care with a single phone call, often to world-renowned experts in their fields.” (7:00 pm) Follow the above link for more information.

Seattle MetBlogs
The Seattle Jewish Film Festival kicked off with a pre-opening night party at Palace Ballroom featuring food and drinks, Israeli singer/songwriter Anna He, and local filmmaker Andy Schocken presenting clips from his films, including the Oscar-nominated documentary he co-produced, The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner. The SJFF officially opened Saturday, with Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film nominee Ajami, a “gritty, urban crime drama that tells the interwoven stories of Jewish, Muslim and Christian neighbors living in bloody disharmony in Israel’s impoverished Jaffa neighborhood”. The festival continues through March 21 with films and special events at a variety of venues including SIFF, Cinerama, the Stroum Jewish Community Center, and the Washington State History Museum. Films being screened include dramas, comedies and a slew of documentaries from around the world including Look Into My Eyes, filmmaker Naftaly Gliksberg examination of anti-Semitism on two continents, and Amnon’s Story about master violin maker, Amnon Weinstein who restores Holocaust-era instruments.