The 12th annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival, offering viewers 41 films at
four movie houses around the county Feb. 14-24, deals in topics that once
may have been considered verboten at an event sponsored by an arm of the
organized Jewish community.

These include one group of movies focusing on marriages or romantic
relationships between Jews and non-Jews, another group concerning Jewish
gays and lesbians, and a third group providing not always complimentary
perspectives on Israel's conflict with the Palestinians. In some cases,
advertisements for movies also warn of "adult content" -- that is, some
explicit sexual scenes.

Jacqueline Siegel, executive director of the sponsoring San Diego Center for
Jewish Culture, a subsidiary of the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center,
said the selection of movies represents "what today's filmmakers are making
films about."

"There's a reason they are doing it," she added in an interview with
Heritage. "They are reflecting our society, they are reflecting our times,
and that will teach us, that will make us aware. Whether it is good, bad, we
like it, we don't like it, we need to be aware and hopefully moved."

The volunteer co-chairs of the festival are Joyce Axelrod and Judy Friedel.
"One of my goals is to bring films to our festival that people are not going
to see in commercial theaters," Axelrod said. "I would like them to see
those small independent films that are so personal, and they pack such a
wallop, that you know if you don't see it at our festival, it is not going
to be on video.nor on KPBS."

Friedel said the festival tries to present a variety of feature films,
documentaries and shorts. Selection often is guided by "what we hear is
Ohot.' What are people talking about? What is the buzz?"

One of the films that has caused a "buzz" is Trembling Before God, which
explores the lives of homosexuals who try to remain as active members of the
Orthodox community. Are members of our local Orthodox community likely to be
offended?

"They don't watch movies," Axelrod replied. "We have had risque topics
before and we have had so few negative comments. I don't think the Orthodox
community will come to our festival."

Friedel said whenever in the past the festival offered a movie that pushed
the envelope a little, "we held our breath a little." Turning to Axelrod,
she urged, "Tell the story about the first gay/ lesbian film shown."

"It was Chicks in White Satin," Axelrod responded. "It was during the years
that we (the festival) were at Sherwood Hall. Well, Lynette (Allen, former
cultural director at the JCC) and I loved the film and we decided that we
were going to show it, and we just held our breath, and the two principals
of the show, the two women who were married, lived in San Diego.and the two
women were in the audience as guests, and when I asked them to stand after
the film they were applauded loudly. And as we walked out, people came up to
us and said, 'Thank you for bringing this film."

Siegel said that "we are trying to uplift the audience and bring things that
will attract an audience and also challenge them."

Asked if they intended the festival more to educate than entertain, Axelrod
responded: "I think there has to be a balance. I would love to think that
people would come out of the movie and say 'I was profoundly affected by
that. I didn't expect to be, I didn't think I would like the style of that,
but it hit me and spoke to me."

"It is beyond entertainment," declared Siegel. "Entertainment is there every
day of the week, whenever you want it."

This being a Jewish film festival, there is another aspect to it, noted
Friedel. "There has to be some Jewish content."

Are there any topics that would still be considered taboo?

Friedel said she recently attended a film festival in Palm Springs where one
of the movies was one she had heard quite a buzz about. Called Late
Marriage, it included "an approximately 45-minute sex scene, the most
explicit sex scene I have seen in a non-X-rated movie. It was from Israel,
where it won the equivalent of an Academy Award."

Although the film was somewhat shocking, that was not the reason it wasn¹t
included in this year's festival, Friedel said. "It was too late; it was
already in December. But I would like to take a look at it for next year."

"We don't shy away from saying that something has adult content in our
brochure," Siegel said.

"This is a new phenomenon in our film festival," added Axelrod. "I remember
when Gary Jacobs (former president of the Lawrence Family JCC) introduced a
film, and he came to us and said, 'Did you know that there is nudity in
that?' And Lynette said, 'Oh my gosh, I didn't realize that.' And that was
the first film that we were criticized for not signifying in the brochure.
This time we say adult content in a lot of it; there are a lot more films
that are more risque now."

Apparently, the spicy fare available at film festivals has contributed to
their financial successes. Over its 12 years, the San Diego Jewish Film
Festival's attendance has progressively climbed. Not so many years ago, it
reached 10,000; it hit 13,000 the following year; reached 16,000 last year,
and is anticipated to surpass 18,000 this year.

Putting on such a festival is a major financial undertaking, costing between
$130,000 and $150,000 for such expenses as theater and film rentals, travel
expenses for visiting film makers, and advertising and marketing. These
expenses are defrayed by ticket revenues -- with standard $10-per-performance
tickets discounted for JCC members, seniors, students and matinee goers --
and by endowments and contributions.

For example, a $250,000 endowment was contributed in memory of Joy F. Knapp
by nieces and nephews Erica and Daniel Sollender and Griffin and Jonah
Schulman. The Lipinsky Family Foundation, meanwhile, contributed a $100,000
endowment in memory of Dorris Lipinsky. The latter endowment will help pay
transportation and related expenses for two special Holocaust presentations,
on Feb. 20 and 21, of an award-winning biographical feature on Gerda Klein,
a survivor.

Interest from these endowments, an outright grant of $50,000 from the Mizel
Family Foundation, and contributions of $350 or more from approximately 300
people, all will assure that the festival not only pays for itself but helps
pay some salaries and expenses for the Center for Jewish Culture and its
parent organization, the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center.

Joy Knapp's family remembered how, when she was so sick that she could not
get out of bed, her sister "climbed into bed with her to watch films and
they just felt this was so appropriate," Axelrod said.

Programming for this year's festival will continue this year at sites in La
Jolla (AMC Theatres) and Mission Valley (Mann Hazard Center), but in
addition some of the movies will be shown at Ultrastar Theatres in Poway and
La Costa.

"It is an outreach to bring an array of international films to any film
lover in the community rather than saying 'Come to our club at the AMC,"
Siegel explained. "It is saying that we are reaching out to you to bring you
this incredible event."

Behind the scenes of this year's festival was a steering committee of
approximately 40 members.

"We had viewing lunches we started in June, where we would say Othere is a
movie that is going to be shown at noon, bring your lunch' and we would have
rating sheets," Friedel said. "And then we had people who were involved in
the hospitality aspects -- the opening night party, the brunch. We have a
hospitality room at the AMC where underwriters can go and hang out between
movies, and where filmmakers can go and mingle. We have people that are
involved in picking up the filmmakers, making sure that they are
comfortable, getting them together with the people and with each other, and
getting them to the theater on time. So it is very labor-intensive."

In addition to the steering committee, there are numerous other volunteers,
Siegel said. "There is the training of the volunteers, the organizing of the
volunteers. It involves all the technical aspects of the theater, setting up
sound systems and radio controls, and making sure we have the right film
equipment and the right film in the right places."

The festival helps to build San Diego's Jewish community, in Friedel's view.
Some of the people in attendance, she said, "are people who do not give
their money for other things, people who don't come out to support any other
Jewish kind of event, people who are not affiliated with synagogues."

Yet, some of those people who attended the festival were so taken with it
that they subsequently agreed to become members of the volunteer committee,
Siegel said. This puts them "on the leadership track and they bring their
friends in, and those friends are Jewish and non-Jewish."

"We are part of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture," Friedel said.
"One of the big theories behind that organization is that this is the part
of people's Jewishness -- film, music, books; the arts -- that if they don't
identify with anything else Jewish in their lives, this is the one thing
that they hold on to."