Lights, camera, action: JFilm returns to the big screen
'We're hoping to really touch everyone through this multicultural lineup'
A popular film festival is returning for its 33rd installment. JFilm, operated by Film Pittsburgh, will kick off April 30 at Row House Hollywood with a showing of “Ethan Bloom,” a coming-of-age tale involving a young man’s bar mitzvah preparation.
The festival, which runs through May 10, includes multiple opportunities for in-person and digital involvement and celebration. For starters, explained Film Pittsburgh Executive Director Shanna Carrick, opening night attendees are invited to join a stylish post-film dessert reception.
The shtick, she said, is that everyone is encouraged to “wear their old bar and bat mitzvah gear — if you still have it.” Whether it’s monogrammed T-shirts, hoodies or yarmulkes, “bring that celebration into Row House for our opening night.”
Part of what’s driving this year’s program is a desire to foster “Jewish joy,” Carrick said. “We understand that we also can’t have the light without the dark — because not every film in our lineup is going to be joyful — but we’re hoping to really touch everyone through this multicultural lineup.”
The slate includes 40 films varying in length and subject — seven films are available for at-home viewing via the JFilm 2026 Virtual Festival. And new this year, Carrick said, is an audience-choice award for Best Short Film.
Named after Harvey Sloan, a former chief operating officer and senior vice president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, the award recognizes a dedicated communal professional, Federation CEO Jeffrey Finkelstein said. “Harvey Sloan served many positions within the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. Through them all, he was a champion of JFilm, believing that the community could engage more people in Jewish life through cultural arts.”
The award, Finkelstein added, is a “beautiful tribute to an individual who would be so proud of the staying power of this effort through Film Pittsburgh.”
Similar to prior festivals, JFilm will occur at multiple venues (Row House Hollywood in Dormont; McConomy Auditorium in Oakland; and The Lindsay Theater in Sewickley) and pair several movies with talkbacks and collaborations.
On May 3, a screening of “Disposable Humanity” will be followed by a conversation between Randall Halle of the University of Pittsburgh and Daniel Singleton of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. The Carnegie Mellon University-based program, which is co-presented with Achieva and the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, addresses the history of the Aktion T4 program, a state-sanctioned effort resulting in the murder of more than 300,000 disabled people between 1939 and 1941.
On May 2, also at CMU’s McConomy Auditorium, JFilm will welcome Grammy-nominated concert pianist Mona Golabek for a performance preceding “Hold on to your Music,” a film charting the story of Golabek’s mother, Lisa Jura, a child prodigy pianist, who was one of 10,000 unaccompanied Jewish children rescued from Nazi-occupied Europe and brought to England on the Kindertransport in 1938.
Golabek’s performance, which is presented by Classrooms Without Borders and Teen Screen, is one of several ways the festival creates personal and communal meaning, Carrick explained.
As a lead-up to this year’s event, Carrick learned a related mantra: “JFilm is the synagogue of the unaffiliated.”
That sentiment “really speaks to me,” she said. Being in a theater when the lights go down, with community members seated nearby, creates a “really peaceful, almost virtual experience.”
Carrick, who took Film Pittsburgh’s helm last year, hopes festivalgoers use JFilm to spark substance within their own lives and support a program that’s served thousands of Pittsburghers for decades.
Sustaining this festival for 33 years is “really a great testament to the support that we have,” she said. “I hope that under my leadership, people still want to come to JFilm and experience the films that we’re programming.”
Tickets, and a schedule of films, are available at jfilm26.eventive.org. PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
comments