CLICK THE PHOTOS BELOW TO VIEW EXCERPTS FROM SOME OF OUR WORK.
THE RIFLEMAN’S VIOLIN
“The Rifleman’s Violin” revisits an extraordinary intersection of history and music that took place at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945. The film is one of several media components in an ongoing collaboration between Citizen Film and the Hoover Institution Archive which has already reached 700,000 people thanks to a combination of online, radio, and live in–person programming at venues ranging from New York’s Lincoln Center to San Francisco’s New Mission Theatre.
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT! T-SHIRTS & THE CURATION OF IDENTITY
This short film is part of a multimedia installation created collaboratively by Citizen Film, the Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM), Stanford University professor Ari Kelman and his graduate students. Our intimate and lighthearted interviews with Ari Kelman engaged a large audience thanks to our partnership with CJM. The videos were featured as part as of a CJM onsite multimedia installation, exploring T-shirts as canvasses for meditation on contemporary identities, and included purchasable t-shirts, video projection, and an interactive online exhibition. We will continue this model of partnership creation as we build our “Sholem Aleichem Out Loud” campaign.
BRIDGE OF BOOKS
This documentary short chronicles the adventures of Aaron Lansky, an enterprising 23-year-old who set out to rescue the world’s Yiddish books. The film, broadcast on public television in 2001, is still on permanent display in the National Yiddish Book Center gallery on Hampshire College Campus, where it is viewed by some 10,000 visitors annually. A “Sholem Aleichem Out Loud” outreach strategy combining dissemination through traditional media outlets and the internet alongside an in-gallery presentation at the Yiddish Book Center, our key sholemaleichem.org outreach partner, would substantially extend the project’s reach.
BALANCING ACTS: A JEWISH THEATER IN SOVIET UNION
Part of a multimedia collaboration between Citizen Film and the Jewish Museum NY, this documentary explores the life and times of Yiddish theatre director Solomon Mikhoels, for the exhibition “Chagall and the Artists of Russian-Jewish Theatre,” curated by Susan Goodman. “Film sequences in the exhibit, including five minutes of GOSET’s King Lear and a brief, incisive documentary by Sam Ball, suggest that Mikhoels merits billing equal to Chagall…” -The Forward. Media from this exhibit will also be presented in October 2015 at Paris’ Musée de la Musique in an exhibition about Chagall’s artistic collaborations.
REMEMBERING YOSL MLOTEK
This short memorial film was produced for a National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene multimedia event at Frederick Rose Hall, the home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, in 2012.
JOANN SFAR DRAWS FROM MEMORY
One of two Citizen Film/Les Films du Poisson co-productions for Franco-German (ARTE) and American public television, this documentary profiles artist Joann Sfar, who explores his Algerian-Jewish heritage in best-selling graphic novels. Joann Sfar Draws From Memory was telecast on PBS affiliates across the US in 2012 thanks to a partnership with presenting affiliate KQED supported by both public and private funding.
PLEASURES OF URBAN DECAY
This film explores the Yiddish-inflected world of MacArthur Genius award winner Ben Katchor. It premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival and was selected by several of the world’s most prestigious documentary film festivals (Cinema du Reel, MoMA Documentary Fortnight, etc.) before screening widely at museums in the US and Europe as part of various graphic novel exhibitions.
POUMY
A selection of MoMA-New York’s Documentary Fortnight in 2005, this documentary tells the story of a young mother in the French Resistance. It is distributed to classrooms by Alexander Street Press and has been viewed by more than 20,000 high school and middle school students, according to a survey conducted with the aid of a Koret Foundation grant. “Smart, funny… and a reminder of the power of a single, dedicated person under pressure.” -The New York Jewish Week