The familiar in the foreign

Oklahoma Jewish Film Festival has something for everyone

The 4th annual Oklahoma Jewish Film Festival, hosted at the Circle Cinema, offers a slew of comedies, dramas, foreign-language films, and documentaries.

Kerry Wiens, the festival’s director of programming, says it’s always been her intent to ensure that the festival would appeal to all sorts of audiences. Their screening committee plucked from the general Jewish film festival circuit those movies that they thought Tulsans would most enjoy.

In her own words: “We don’t want too many documentaries or too many dramas.”

The festival began as a collaboration between Circle Cinema, the Jewish Federation of Tulsa, and the Sherman Miller Museum of Jewish Art. A small year-round film series already existed, but the partners decided a film festival would bring in more new films.

“Plus, having a firm date every year made it easier for us to get better guests,” Wiens said. “Last year we had Yuval Rabin come from Israel to speak about his father, assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. That was really special.”

This year the festival’s guests are as diverse as the films. Local film critics will follow up a screening of “The Graduate” with a panel discussion; the animator of mixed-media documentary “Monkey Business: The Adventures of Curious George’s Creators,” is hosting a post-screening Q&A. The intricacies of Tel Aviv’s 1977 European Basketball Championship are explored in “On The Map,” a documentary with an intro and Q&A hosted by TU Basketball Coach Frank Haith.

“Be Curious” is the through-line of each film this year. Each day, the theme will take on a new meaning. While viewing a documentary about a hotel that served as an Anglo-Jewish hub, a comedy about a young man trying to steal his grandmother’s pickle recipe, and a comedy-drama depicting an orthodox community in Jerusalem divided by a bat mitzvah mishap, viewers are encouraged to be curious about community.

“It takes a little bit of curiosity to attend any film festival, really,” Wiens said. “You don’t see ads or trailers like you might for other movies in theaters. At a festival you really just have to take a chance.”

The theme is inspired by “Monkey Business,” which will show at the festival. This documentary follows Margaret and Hans Rey, the caretakers, or parents of the cultural icon Curious George, as they forge success all across the world, even when forced to flee Paris on bicycles as the Nazi army invades.

“The Reys were survivors,” said Director Ema Yamazaki. “They never lost their spirit of adventure—not when things were bad, and not even when things were boring, or just normal.”

If viewers take anything from the film, Yamazaki hopes it will be that spirit and an understanding of what makes Curious George such a timeless character.

“Children live vicariously through George; they see themselves in his curiosity. Parents might see themselves in the Man in the Yellow Hat, in the kind of love and patience he has for George.”

This is not at all unlike Kerry Wiens hope for festival attendees in general. “[Circle Cinema’s] motto is ‘Community conscientious through film,’” she said. “The more one sees that other cultures have the same hopes, dreams, and struggles as their own the more they are humanized, fostering tolerance.”

This might be best exemplified in the documentary, “Germans and Jews,” which explores the large expatriate Jewish community in Germany today, and how Germans themselves have begun to address the horrors of the Holocaust.    

“When you first begin watching a foreign film, the first things you notice are the differences: the cars on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, or the language they are speaking,” Wiens said. “But then you start to see the human aspects. How a child might fight with their father, or how a girl feels about a boy.” This festival aims to make foreign cultures seem anything but.

In the future, Wiens and the other organizers hope to bring it to Oklahoma City and make it an event for the whole state, not just Tulsa.

The festival will kick off at the Circle Cinema on Sunday, October 22 and ends the Wednesday, October 25. The full schedule of events can be found at circlecinema.com. All tickets are $10 unless noted otherwise.