Souvenirs
10:00 a.m., Contra Costa JCC
Israel, 2006, 75 minutes, Hebrew with subtitles

Israeli filmmaker Shahar Cohen finds himself in a personal rut until his father suggests that they go on a road trip and retrace the route that the Jewish Brigade took during WWII as it fought the Nazis. The elder Cohen fought in the Brigade and shares his war stories with his son, including the fact that he may have left a few “souvenirs” in certain European cities who would now be older than Shahar himself.

WITH

Melting Siberia
Israel, 2005, 76 minutes, Hebrew, Russian with subtitles

Familial wounds resurface in this moving documentary. Filmmaker Ido Haar decides to investigate the fate of his maternal grandfather, a high ranking Red Army officer in post war Latvia who disappeared after Ido’s grandmother became pregnant. Ido’s mother, 57-year-old Marina, struggles between long-held resentments and a chance for reconciliation with the father she has never met.