Your Daily Spiel for August 22
President Donald Trump warns that Israel will have to pay a “high price” in peace negotiations with the Palestinians; TIFF has added a second Natalie Portman film to its Special Presentations program; and work on the Ayalon highway in Tel Aviv will no longer be done on Shabbat.
Your Daily Spiel for August 16
A fashion shoot taking place at the Canadian National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa has angered Jewish leaders; TIFF has partnered with the Yorkville Jewish Centre to provide High Holiday services to Jewish industry attendees; Israel’s Educational Television channel went off the air recently; Ruby Rose has deleted her Twitter account following backlash over her being cast as Batwoman.
Your Daily Spiel for August 13
Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman claims that every Palestinian killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip in the past four-and-a-half months was a member of the Hamas terrorist group; the upcoming live-action Kim Possible movie will be co-directed by Canadian Jews Adam B. Stein and Zach Lipovsky; 2,000 youths marched in Tel Aviv on Saturday demanding equality for the LGBT community in Israel.
Emerging Israeli director earns retrospective
Michael Fraiman profiles Israeli director Nadav Lapid, whose films will be showing at a special retrospective at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto starting on August 16.
In there is a house here, filmmaker develops as interviewer
The film, filmed over three seasons, shows Zweig developing as an interviewer. At first, he repeatedly asks the Iglulik inhabitants about what he can do to make their lives happier. Unsurprisingly, the subjects view this question as obtuse and overwhelming.
Your daily spiel for Thursday, September 7
Today’s spiel: Illinois candidate for governor drops running mate over BDS disagreement; Anne Frank’s diary is now a graphic novel; Jewish seniors brace themselves for Hurricane Irma.
The Jewish and Israeli films to look out for at TIFF
This year’s festival includes dramas about the struggles of Orthodox communities in the U.S. and the U.K., plus the world premieres of films by Jewish-Canadian directors like animator Sol Friedman and documentarian Alan Zweig.
We Forgot to Break Up premieres at TIFF
Toronto writer and director Chandler Levack’s 15-minute short We Forgot to Break Up, about a trans male reuniting with former bandmates years after abandoning the group, premieres at TIFF’s Short Cuts Programme 05.
Soccer hooligans of the Middle East
Israeli soccer fans are a passionate bunch, none more rabid, rowdy or racist than La Familia, Beitar of Jerusalem
Women play major role in Israeli TIFF screenings
Among the six films selected from Israel for TIFF are works from three women directors – all of whom are making their feature debuts. Meanwhile, Or Sinai, a recent Jerusalem film school graduate, is making her first TIFF appearance with the short film Anna.
