Paris-Manhattan, Suskind, The Other Son, among this year's Windsor Jewish Film Festival offerings

The 11th annual Windsor Jewish Film Festival runs April 29 – May 2 and features 10 films, all made in the last couple of years with the exception of the opening night classic The Two of Us (1967) directed by France’s Claude Berri. Autobiographical, the film is about a Parisian Jewish child who is sent to live with a friend’s elderly Catholic parents on a farm during the Nazi-occupied era. The boy discovers anti-Semitism up close and personal…..On Tuesday the recent film Paris-Manhattan has been generating a lot of buzz about a reluctant romantic, Alice, who in personal life doesn’t want to date because, well, she’s in love with Woody Allen. A fascinating historical documentary is screened later that afternoon Follow Me - The Yonatan Netanyahu Story about the famed Israeli soldier who led the attack at Entebbe and died. His story is told through friends and family including younger brother Benjamin Netanyahu. My Australia is set in 1960s Poland where a mother, a Holocaust survivor, finds her boys running with the wrong anti-Semitic crowd. She moves them to, not Australia but Israel…..On Wednesday Suskind (2012) is another film that has generated buzz. It’s about a German émigré to Holland during the Second World War who harbours Jews while he liases with the Nazi SS. Salsa Tel Aviv, a light comedy, is about a Mexican dancer’s unlikely romance in Israel. It’s followed by The Other Son, another recent film that has drawn considerable attention. It’s about switched identities at birth between an Israeli and Palestinian child and the later discovery of their heritages…..On Thursday, A Bottle in the Gaza Sea is another tender story of reconciliation between two young people, one Israeli and the other Palestinian – “a Romeo and Juliet tale for the Internet Age.” Free Men tells the little known story of a Mosque in Nazi-occupied Paris that sheltered Jews during World War II. It’s followed by Remembrance, a true story about a love affair between a Polish freedom fighter and a Jewish woman who escape a concentration camp only to be separated, then discover each other three decades later……All films are screened at Devonshire Mall Cineplex Odeon.  Tickets are available at the door each day or at the Windsor Jewish Community Centre. Tickets $10.00 cash per film. For more info go to www.jewishwindsor.org