MARCH 11 - 19, 2000

SJFF NEWS!
As of 5:00 PM Friday, March 10, we are no longer accepting advance ticket orders via fax or at the 390-7791 box office number. If you would like to purchase tickets to any Seattle Jewish Film Festival, please purchase them at the Loews City Centre box office - which will be open one hour before each scheduled screening.

FESTIVAL EXTENDED - ADDITIONAL "YANA'S FRIENDS" SCREENINGS

SJFF has added 10 additional screenings of "Yana's Friends" on Monday, March 20 and Tuesday, March 21. Screening times are 1:30, 3:30, 5:30, 7:30 and 9:30 PM at the Loews Cineplex City Centre Theatre. There are no advance tickets available for these screenings; tickets will be sold at the City Centre Box Office the day of the show.

WELCOME!

Dear Friends,
Just five years ago the American Jewish Committee of Greater Seattle launched the first Seattle Jewish Film Festival. Searching for a way to increase awareness of our unique Jewish communities, nurture pluralism, and build bridges between our region’s diverse racial, religious and ethnic groups, we chose film as our medium.

Film has an unparalleled immediacy and vibrancy as it captures a wonderful range of languages and stories. This medium allows us to consider our past and contemplate our future from our place at the dawning of the 21st century and from our cushiony seats with popcorn in hand. SJFF takes the broad human relations mission of the AJC and annually brings it to the silver screen for your exploration and enjoyment.

In the past five years, SJFF has grown into a major community event which draws over 8,000 people together. With your support, the Seattle Jewish Film Festival has become one of the largest Jewish Film Festivals in the country, one that plays a central role in the life of the Greater Seattle Jewish community.

Almost 200 films competed for a spot in this year’s line-up. Seventeen countries are represented, with a line-up that includes one U.S., five West Coast, and eighteen Northwest premieres! The films being screened represent the most evocative, original, and visually stunning Jewish films released in the past year. As you’ve come to expect from past festivals, our Fifth Anniversary season has it all: comedies that will send you into stitches, controversial portraits of contemporary Jewish life, and historical chronicles about Jewish communities in extraordinary places. In addition to the many filmmakers from around the world joining us for post-film discussions, local community leaders feature prominently in our programs, highlighting the “Seattle” in the Seattle Jewish Film Festival.

Setting out to reflect and represent the variety and complexity of people and experiences that comprise our local and global Jewish communities, SJFF draws together individuals from all areas of communal life ? leaders and newcomers, religious and secular, affiliated and non-traditional, young and old. It creates a venue for our diverse community to explore, learn and discuss our common bonds and our differences. There are enormous challenges inherent in putting on such a large scale event, but SJFF enables us to offer a year’s worth of AJC related programming in a single week.

If the issues and ideas addressed during the Film Festival excite you, we encourage you to become involved in the AJC and SJFF. Throughout this guide you will find examples of AJC activities that tie in to the themes represented in our film and program line-up. We encourage you to learn more about the AJC, the oldest human rights agency in the U.S. If you are not yet a member of the AJC, please consider joining. Your membership will help to reduce prejudice and discrimination, to enhance democratic values, to promote pluralism and of course, to continue celebrating the diversity and richness of the Jewish experience through the magic of film.

This year’s fifth anniversary festival is proudly brought to you under the collective guidance of the past four years’ festival chairs, by the amazingly talented and committed festival staff, and through the efforts of a long list of volunteers. In addition, SJFF relies upon the sponsorship of many individuals, corporations, foundations and community organizations. Without their contributions of funding, in-kind support, and technical assistance there simply would be no festival. We encourage you to support our sponsors.

We wish to thank the AJC-SJFF staff who have given their all to make this Festival our best yet; Molly Sedlik, Pamela Brown-Lavitt, Cathleen O’Connell, Melissa Marlowe, Sally Gilpin, and Dara Ayres. Last, we wish to thank you, our audience, volunteers and supporters for your enthusiasm and participation over the past five years. View, savor, discuss and enjoy!

Warmly,

Festival Co-Chairs: 

Carol Gown,

Michael Levin,

Ron Ralph,

Deborah Rosen,

Leslie Rosen

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