Sun Valley Jewish Film Festival
BY YANNA LANTZ
Join the Wood River Jewish Community for the fourth annual Sun Valley Jewish Film Festival, a festival designed to honor the Jewish experience, July 11-20. Enjoy four world-class films that promise to educate, entertain and showcase Jewish culture. The film festival is free to the public and all the films will be shown in the Community School Theatre in Sun Valley.
Linda Cooper is the producer and chair of the Film Festival Committee and is ecstatic to bring this annual event back to Sun Valley.
“I’m very involved in the Jewish community and I love the tapestry of Jewish culture and I want to share it,” Cooper explained. “My mother was very responsible for invoking in me the love of Jewish people, our history and Israel. Through the festival, we explore not only Jewish history but also world history and artistry.”
The success of the free festival has grown immensely over the past few years.
“We had no idea how successful the festival was going to be and we have had to turn away people every year,” Cooper said. “About a third of the audience is not Jewish, which we’re so happy about.”
The festival will kick off Monday, July 11 at 6 p.m. with “Neil Diamond: Solitary Man.” The opening film follows the story of a shy Jewish boy from Brooklyn who goes on a lifelong quest to discover himself through music.
“We picked ‘Neil Diamond’ as our opening film because it’s a feel-good and interesting flick that we hope will draw in a lot of people,” Cooper said.
On Monday, July 18, enjoy a double feature starting at 6 p.m. with “Oskar & Jack” and “Shooting for Home.” “Oskar & Jack” tells the fascinating story of identical twins who were separated at birth. Oskar was raised in Germany in the Nazi Youth and Jack grew up as a Jew in Trinidad. “Shooting for Home” follows the story of Kevin Bradshaw, the greatest basketball player never known.
The film festival will conclude on Wednesday, July 20 at 6 p.m. with “Remember,” a stunning thriller chock-full of twists and turns surrounding revenge and justice.
All the films for the 2016 festival were chosen carefully.
“I watch about 150 films during the year – I never stop investigating,” laughed Cooper. “We have a wonderful committee of 12 who live all over the country, so during the season we all communicate and wind up choosing the films for the year. The films are chosen on quality and merit. We show brand new films, such as ‘Remember,’ as well as great films from the past.”
For Cooper, watching the community come together to experience the films is the best part of the festival.
“I love when the audience reacts to the films,” she said. “People laugh, cry, sigh and learn. It’s so much fun to experience that as a community.”
To learn more about the Sun Valley Jewish Film Festival and the Wood River Jewish Community, visit wrjc.org/upcoming-events.