The Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival continues this weekend with screenings of films by and about Jews. On Sunday, 100 Voicesfollows a group of American hazzan, or Jewish cantors, as they travel on mission to Warsaw’s Grand Theatre, Poland’s grandest opera house, where they will perform a concert of traditional Jewish music to a mostly non-Jewish audience. As their personal stories unfold we are confronted with a culture torn asunder by the most horrific single crime ever perpetrated against a people. The cantors make pilgrimages to the abandoned homes of their fathers and grandfathers, tell stories of survival and loss and visit the notorious death camp Auschwitz. But this story is also about reconciliation and revival: filmed just as Poland experiences a renaissance of Jewish culture, the movie captures a moment in which two inextricably intertwined cultures emerge from the long shadow of the Shoah.
The festival wraps up Thursday, April 5 with a screening of Who Do You Love. Born in a shtetl just outside of a small town in Poland, Leonard Chess grew up to become one of the most important music producers of all time, helping the blues music of the black South gain a foothold in southside Chicago. As founders of Chess Records, Leonard and his brother Phil provided the means by which the form first found popular appeal on the airwaves. Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Willie Dixon all had their first major hits on Chess. As the times and tastes changed, Chess artists Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry helped invent the rock & roll sound. To this day, the name Chess is synonymous with the first great generation of artists that forever altered the music industry.
THE SANTA CRUZ JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL continues this weekend on Saturday, March 31 at 4pm and Sunday, April 1 at 2pm at Temple Beth-El, 3055 Porter Gulch Road, Aptos. Festival wraps up Thursday, April 5 at 7pm with a screening of Who Do You Loveat the Del Mar Theater. See santacruzjewishfilmfestival.com for more information. (Tickets for individual screenings are $8 adv/$10 door)
