Some exciting virtual screenings and Q+As are being offered by the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan this month. These include three events presented by ReelAbilities Film Festival (Short Films, Code of the Freaks, and Crip Camp) as a celebration of 30 years since the signing of the ADA. The other two films (The Tobacconist and My Polish Honeymoon) are being hosted on the Israel Film Center Stream.
You can view the full line-up here or learn more about each film below!
Virtual Screening and Q + A: “The Tobacconist”
Seventeen-year-old Franz journeys to Vienna to apprentice at a tobacco shop. There he meets Sigmund Freud (Bruno Ganz), a regular customer, and over time the two very different men form a singular friendship. When Franz falls desperately in love with the music-hall dancer Anezka, he seeks advice from the renowned psychoanalyst, who admits that the female sex is as big a mystery to him as it is to Franz. As political and social conditions in Austria dramatically worsen with the Nazis’ arrival in Vienna, Franz, Freud, and Anezka are swept into the maelstrom of events. Each has a big decision to make: to stay or to flee?
Click here for more info and to register.
Virtual Screening: ReelAbilities Short Films
The following short films will be available to stream between July 10th – 17th. A live virtual Q+A with the filmmakers will take place on July 14th at 1pm.
“Sock Guys”
Dir. Katie Turinski
11 min – Documentary – English – US
A peek inside a unique business owned and operated by a young man with Down Syndrome and his father.
“CODA”
Dir. Erika Davis-Marsh
22 mins – Narrative – English, American Sign Language – US
A young dancer struggles with her bi-cultural identity when she meets a confident young Deaf man who stirs up conflicted feelings about growing up hearing in a Deaf family.
“Jmaxx and the Universal Language”
Dir. Ryan Mayers
13 min – Documentary – English – US
A teenager with autism turns to hip-hop dance as a way to better express himself.
Click here for more info and to register.
Virtual Screening and Q+A: “Code of the Freaks”
Taking its title from Tod Browning’s classic film, this radical reframing of how characters with disabilities are represented looks at a century of Hollywood favorites with a fresh perspective. Disability activists imagine a cinematic landscape that takes people with disabilities seriously.
Click here for more info and to register.
Crip Camp Q + A
No one at Camp Jened could’ve imagined that those summers in the woods together would be the beginnings of a revolution. Just down the road from Woodstock, Camp Jened was a camp for disabled teens. Directors Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht (a former Jened camper himself) deliver a rousing film about a group of campers turned activists who shaped the future of the disability-rights movement and changed accessibility legislation for everyone.
Click here for more info and to register.
Virtual Screening and Q + A: “My Polish Honeymoon”
Freshly married Anna and Adam, a young Parisian couple with Jewish origins, travel to Poland for the first time. During what is technically their honeymoon, they will attend a memorial ceremony for the Jewish community in Adam’s grandfather’s village. Adam is not really enthusiastic, but sees the trip as an occasion to spend some quality time with his wife away from their baby boy. Anna, on the other hand, is hoping to reconnect with her roots and finally discover more about her own family’s history, which has always been a mystery…
Click here for more info and to register.
