Film Series - Temple Concord SyracuseCinemagogue Series Schedule & Synopsis
2016 - 2017 Program
Our popular Cinemagogue, Temple Concord’s film series, offers a variety of films with Jewish themes, filmmakers and Jewish-American stars. Admission is free, but donations are always welcomed.
You can become a sponsor of the Cinemagogue with a $100 gift to the Temples Congregational Learning Fund and see your name listed in the program for each film!
Films will be shown on Saturday evenings and a few Tuesdays at 7:30 pm. Included in the evening is a concession stand for the real cinema experience!
Saturday, October 29, 2016 - Deli Man
Jewish culture reflects the heart of a vital ethnic history. As that culture continues to shift and adapt alongside mainstream America, delicatessen food, as its name suggests, remains a beloved communal delicacy. In Houston, Texas, third-generation deli man Ziggy Gruber has built arguably the finest delicatessen restaurant in the U.S. His story augmented by the stories of iconic delis such as Katz’s, 2nd Avenue Deli, Nate ‘n’ Al, Carnegie, and the Stage embodies a tradition indelibly linked to its savory, nostalgic foods.
Saturday, November 12, 2016 - 24 Days
A tense and timely thriller, 24 DAYS tells the heart-breaking true story of the 2006 kidnapping of 23-year old Ilan Halimi from his Paris suburb by a group calling themselves “The Gang of Barbarians”. Backed by a top-notch cast, director Alexandre Arcady’s white-knuckle film follows the massive police manhunt and the Halimi family’s nightmarish ordeal as they race against the clock to find Ilan and his abductors.
Saturday, December 10, 2016 - Son of Saul
October 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Saul is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners forced to assist the Nazis. While working, Saul discovers the body of a boy he takes for his son. As the Sonderkommando plans a rebellion, Saul decides to carry out an impossible task: save the child's body,find a rabbi to recite the mourner's Kaddish and offer the boy a proper burial.
Saturday, January 21, 2017 - On the Banks of the Tigris
When Majid Shokor escaped from Iraq he discovered that the songs he loved as a child in Baghdad have a hidden history. To find out more, Majid makes a bold journey from Australia to Israel, Europe and Iraq to meet Iraqi musicians, hear their music and stories, and unite them in a concert for peace and reconciliation.
Saturday, March 18, 2017 - Baba Joon
Yitzhak runs the turkey farm his father built with his own two hands after they emigrated from Iran to Israel. When his son Moti turns thirteen, Yitzhak teaches him the trade, hoping that he will continue the proud family tradition. But Moti’s passion is fixing up junkyard cars and bringing them back to life. Moti's mother tries to reconcile the two, while his grandfather pushes Yitzhak to take a firm hand with his son. Though he loves his son dearly, Yitzhak makes it his mission to impose the family farm on Moti. The arrival an uncle from America, sets off a chain of events that will undermine the familial harmony.
Saturday, April 29, 2017 - No Home Movie
This film is a sober, profoundly moving portrait of the filmmaker's mother Natalia in the months leading up to her death, when she was mostly confined to her Brussels apartment. A Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz, Natalia suffered from chronic anxiety all her life, an affliction that fueled much of her daughter's creative output and helped shape Akerman's thematic preoccupations with gender, sex, cultural identity, existential ennui, solitude, and mania.
Saturday, May 20, 2017 - Einstein in the Holy Land
In February 1923 when Albert Einstein arrived in Palestine there were 85,000 Jews living there - and judging from newspaper headlines of the time, it seemed that each and every one of them came to greet and cheer the most famous Jew of his generation. For the next 12 days, Einstein would note his impressions of the emerging Jewish State in a personal travel log he was writing, a journal not meant to be published. Using this never before seen travel log, the film traces the visit to the Holy Land and paints a portrait of the Jewish genius.
Saturday, June 10, 2017 - Apples from the Desert
The rebellious teenage daughter of ultra-Orthodox Jewish parents journeys into the secular world. Rebecca, an only child, lives a cloistered existence with her strictly religious Sephardic parents in Jerusalem. Unhappy with the restrictive traditions of home and community, she secretly breaks taboos, attending dance classes where she forms a relationship with secular kibbutznik. Her strict father reacts, setting in motion a prearranged marriage to an older widower with children of his own. After Rebecca runs away from home, the family conflict culminates in a moment of truth, forcing them to confront their beliefs and one another.
Saturday, July 15, 2017 - The Farewell Party
A group of friends at a Jerusalem retirement home construct a machine for self-euthanasia in order to help a terminally ill pal in a poignant, provocative dramedy. Boasting a dream cast of septuagenarian talent, a finely honed visual sense and superbly ironic comic timing and dialogue, the pic pits the ethics of assisted suicide against the right to die with dignity. Theatrical returns in Israel should be, er, out of this world while offshore, positive word of mouth should smooth the way for this compassionate handling of inherently depressing material.
