14th Annual Axelrod Jewish International Film Festival Returns

HOLMDEL, NJ — The 14th annual Axelrod Jewish International Film Festival has returned and will run from August 4 through August 14 at the Axelrod Performing Arts Center in Deal and Bell Theater at Bell Works in Holmdel.

The nonprofit festival will feature 10 award-winning Israeli and Jewish international films and host in-person screenings.

Film series passes are available for $78, and individual film tickets are available for $12.

Toby Shylit Mack, the director of the Jewish International Film Festival and Film Education, said film enthusiasts will “delight” in the festival’s “heartwarming, funny and poignant award-winning and acclaimed films.”

“You will laugh! You will cry,” Shylit Mack said. “You will be motivated to think about relevant topics.”

According to officials, the mission of the festival is to entertain, but also to treat viewers with “eye-opening experiences.” The films being screened reveal “expansive cinematic landscapes” where audiences can be immersed in “a world of adventures filled with drama, romance, comedy and riveting true stories," officials said.

“Our primary goal is to entertain with a diverse lineup of award-winning and acclaimed films including comedies and family dramas,” Shylit Mack said. “We also strive to educate with riveting cinema based on true events such as ‘Kidnapped,’ ‘One Life,’ ‘The Goldman Case,’ ‘Irina’s Vow’ and ‘Martha Liebermann: A Stolen Life.’”

Before the film festival kicks off on August 4, here’s what you need to know about what films are being screened, where and when:

Axelrod Performing Arts Center

• August 4: ‘Seven Blessings’ will open the festival at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. as Israel’s official entry for the Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film. The film revolves around a Jewish Moroccan family wedding and the traditional blessings that are pronounced during the ceremony, at the reception and for the next seven nights with loved ones hosting special dinners in the couple's honor.
• August 5: ‘No Name Restaurant’ will be screened at 7 p.m. and is set in Alexandria, Egypt. The film follows Ben, an ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn Jew, who's visiting Jerusalem and is sent out to be the desperately needed tenth man for the ceremonies of Pesach to help save the synagogue of the once largest Jewish community in the world from being shut down.
• August 6: ‘Martha Liebermann: A Stolen Life’ will be screened at 4 p.m. and tells the true story of an upper-class widow who couldn’t have imagined leaving her beloved homeland at the age of 85. As a Jew in 1943 Berlin, her only choice is to go abroad or wait to be deported to a concentration camp.
• August 7: ‘Road to Eilat’ will be screened at 7 p.m. and is a semi-autobiographical tale following an estranged father and son Kibbutzniks who set off on a road trip across Israel on an old tractor. The film won Best Israeli Film, Best Actor and Best Cinematography at the Jerusalem Film Festival, and has been nominated for eight Israeli Academy Awards (Ophirs).
• August 7: ‘The Goldman Case’ will be screened at 7 p.m. and follows the 1975 trial of Pierre Goldman, a fiery and controversial figure of revolutionary left-wing activism, who was accused of multiple crimes, including two murders.
• August 8: ‘This is My Mother’ will be screened at 4 p.m. and follows the story of Pierre, who has his life turned upside down when his mother appears on his doorstep after a two year absence. The film is the recipient of a lifetime achievement César Award.
• August 8: ‘Nor by Day, Nor by Night’ will be screened at 7 p.m. and follows the story of a French family of Sephardic heritage living in the heart of the Ashkenazi community in Bnei Brak, Israel.
• August 11: ‘Road to Eilat’ will be screened again at 4 p.m,
• August 11: ‘Kidnapped’ will be screened at 7 p.m. and follows the story of six-year-old Edgardo Mortara who was seized by authorities of the papal state in 1858 Bologna, taken away from his Jewish parents and placed in the care of the church.

Bell Theater

• August 5: ‘Irena’s Vow’ will be screened at 4 p.m. and is a period film set during the German occupation of Poland in the 1940s. The film is based on true accounts and follows Irene Gut Opdyke, a 19-year-old hotel kitchen worker hired by Rugmer, a Nazi official.
• August 14: ‘One Life’ will be shown at 4 p.m. and follows Sir Nicholas Winton, a mild-mannered British stockbroker who helped Jewish refugee children escape to safety from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia during World War II. The film is based on true events.

To learn more about the films being screened at the festival or purchase tickets, you can visit the Axelrod Performing Arts Center website.

The Axelrod Performing Arts Center is located at 100 Grant Ave., Deal Park.

Bell Theater is located at 101 Crawfords Corner Road, Holmdel in the Bell Works complex.