CAY's 1st Annual Film Series
Curated by Chaim Kohn
While these six films span the greater part of a century and travel from Lodz to the Lower East Side, they seem to share a similar story and struggle: Eastern piety versus Western materialism, tradition versus modernity and faith versus learned experience. Generations later, we find these struggles very much a part of our own stories. Much like in these films, somehow no matter what we choose, and often despite our own deepest inclinations, we must either concede or warmly embrace a simple truth: there’s just no place like home.
Disclaimer: These movies will make you laugh, cry, and very possibly call your mother more often.
Mondays @ CAY, 8pm
Beginning May 4th
May 4th: The Jazz Singer
1927 USA, Drama/Musical
90 minutes, B&W, Silent/sound
This landmark of modern cinema, the first talking picture, is also a pro-assimilationist story focusing on the conflicts between generations and between the old and new worlds. Al Jolson plays Jakie, a cantor's son who rejects his family's tradition and wish for him to follow in his father's footsteps by heading for Jazz and Broadway.
Future Films
A Brivele Der Mamen, 1939
Lies My Father Told Me, 1975
The Pawnbroker, 1965
Hester Street, 1975
Crossing Delancey, 1988