The Jewish holiday of Sukkot memorializes a period of Jewish wandering following escape from Egypt. An evening of digital storytelling film and storytelling co-presented by Citizen Film and the Jewish Film Institute riffs on the holiday’s themes, and their relevance to our own, contemporary conundrums. How do we think about our home, our relationship to the natural world, our relationship to an increasingly fractious American society and our own obligations towards strangers displaced by modern-day persecution and conflict?
This evening is inspired by CJM’s Havruta in Contemporary Art initiative. Each of the films presented were created using the Talmudic study principle of Havruta: the study of texts by people in pairs. Documentarian Sam Ball collaborated with leading Jewish scholars one-on-one to develop ways of exploring texts and ideas through digital storytelling. The result is a series of innovative documentary film and multimedia works using today’s ubiquitous new media technologies.
Please click the thumbnail photos below to view excerpts.
WENDY MACNAUGHTON DRAWS CASTRO COMMONS
This is one of several visual poems originally produced for a “digital sukkah” installation in the JCC San Francisco atrium as part of the JCC SF exhibition, “We are not permanent but we are not temporary,” a collaboration between filmmakers, scholars and visual artists.
Please click the thumbnail image to view a video clip directed by Sam Ball. Artist Wendy MacNaughton will be invited to show and discuss the drawings she created as part of this multimedia collaboration.
[wp_lightbox_ultimate_youtube_video_embed videoid=””
playlist=”PLTgaOJvvI_wxIAZEDNkKAymk0xnI7CaiF” width=”700″ height=”393″ hd=”0″ autoplay=”0″
display_control=”1″ fullscreen=”1″ autohide=”2″ theme=”dark” use_https=””
enable_privacy=”” show_logo=”1″ showinfo=”1″ auto_popup=”” direct_embed=””
anchor_type=”image” text=”” source=”https://citizenfilm.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Equivalents_Clouds_NMC_thumb_2x.jpg”]
EQUIVALENTS
Collaboration between scholar Deborah Dash Moore (University of Michigan), filmmaker Sam Ball and the Contemporary Jewish Museum led to a series of creative exercises inspired by pioneering Jewish American photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946.). These videos meditate on the fleeting moments just before Stieglitz transformed transient clouds into permanent works of art. “No two moments are alike,” Stieglitz said. So he photographed clouds as “equivalents” of “profound life experience.”
Click the thumbnail to view a playlist of excerpts from this series. Dr. Dash Moore will be invited to discuss this collaboration using the ITVS Ovee platform for virtual discussion.
THE LIBERATING LENS
Jewish photographers who were outsiders to American culture had enormous impact in changing how Americans came to see themselves in the 20th century, and in helping Jews see America as home. This collaboration with Professor Deborah Dash Moore investigates the liberating power of their cameras.
Please click the thumbnail image to view a video excerpt.
[wp_lightbox_ultimate_youtube_video_embed videoid=””
playlist=”PLTgaOJvvI_wwqgO0pYc381iRce4FBvlU_” width=”700″ height=”393″ hd=”0″ autoplay=”0″
display_control=”1″ fullscreen=”1″ autohide=”2″ theme=”dark” use_https=””
enable_privacy=”” show_logo=”1″ showinfo=”1″ auto_popup=”” direct_embed=””
anchor_type=”image” text=”” source=”https://citizenfilm.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Hidden_in_Plain_Sight_thumb_2x-1.jpg”]
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT!
This short film was originally displayed as part of a sculptural multimedia installation created collaboratively by Citizen Film, the Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM), and Stanford University Professor Ari Kelman, who invites us to explore the phenomenon of Jewish-themed T-Shirts as a way to understand migration from the periphery to the mainstream of American culture.
Please click the thumbnail image to view a playlist of excerpts from this series.
REFUGEE ⎢ MEMORY ⎢OBJECT
This short film is part of a collaboration between Citizen Film and the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. Ball and Professor Francesco Spagnolo, Curator of the Magnes at UC Berkeley, will discuss their ongoing work on a multimedia project exploring what the objects refugees carry with them say about their search for home.
Please click the thumbnail image to view video.
A Virtual Sukkah
During the holiday of Sukkot, Jews eat, sleep and entertain in a sukkah –a temporary dwelling that commemorates shelters Jews built hastily during the exodus from Egypt. With guidance from Columbia Professor Jeremy Dauber, Citizen Film and the Jewish Film Institute invited students 16 and up to investigate their surroundings by reinterpreting religious texts that offer guidelines for building a sukkah:
1. The eye should be drawn to the roof and the sky beyond.
2. The walls must be sturdy enough to withstand an ordinary wind.
3. This dwelling is only temporary.
4. Sharing with others is a special mitzvah.
5. Inside the dwelling, there should be more shadow than light.
We will invite viewers to look for manifestations of these rules in their own environments, then create images and captions to be shared on social media. During the week of Sukkot, we will propose a contest rewarding the best social media posts using the hashtag #digitalsukkah. The winners will receive free movie passes.
Please click here to view an online extension of the students’ work reinterpreting texts, and reimagining Facebook as a sukkah.The audience will be invited to contribute their own interpretations in the coming days.