The Gordon Center for Performing Arts is bringing back a series of movie screenings called “Midday Movies: Food, Flicks & Friends,” which will show five Jewish films from weekdays at 11 a.m. from Nov. 12 to April 2 with kosher lunch and a discussion session after the film.
This will be the second year that the Gordon Center is hosting this program, which was created as an extension of the William and Irene Weinberg Family Baltimore Jewish Film Festival.
“[The program] serves the film-loving community and an older adult community who is frequently looking for activities at that time of day, and we love for people to have intellectual conversations that are based on art,” said Melissa Seltzer, the senior director of arts and culture at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore.
Seltzer added that the program allows attendees to build an interpersonal connection while watching Jewish films and provides a space to discuss the movie amongst themselves and with the guest speakers while the content is still fresh.
Seltzer said part of the program’s draw is that these films are not currently accessible on streaming or other online platforms, meaning that to see these movies, patrons must come in person.
“We want it to be an event that you have to be here to be part of it. It makes it even more special,” Seltzer said.
Seltzer said that they choose which films to show that have relevance to their audience, are recent productions, premiered in Maryland or nearby and aren’t currently available on streaming platforms.
This year the program will screen “Checkout” (2023), “Family Treasures Lost and Found” (2024), “Barren” (2022), “Simone” (2022) and “Esau” (2020).
“We try, when we’re selecting the films, to select films of different countries and different languages, to have a good mix of comedy and documentary and drama,” Seltzer said. “We try to have at least one Holocaust content film… We try to not center on that, but make sure that we include it.”
A huge aspect of the program is the speaker discussion section after the film, which gives the audience a chance to engage directly with the film’s producers or related experts.
“The discussions after primarily start with a 10-minute talk from the director or the speaker, to give it some context about why they made the film, or why they chose a specific topic, or where this topic falls in history, or globally. It just roots and orients the patron, and then the patrons get a chance to ask questions,” Seltzer said.
For Karen Frenkel and Marcia Rock, the producer and director of “Family Treasures Lost and Found,” this program gives them the opportunity to share their educational documentary film about the Holocaust and uncovering family history.
The film focuses on Frenkel’s family as she worked to uncover their traumatic past and story of survival from the Nazis, with the hope of bringing to light the “plight of individuals” and inspire others to look into their own families’ history.
With such a complex and personal story, having the film’s creators on hand immediately after the screening is a valuable resource that can deepen the audience’s connection and understanding.
“It’s exciting to have Karen there and [help people] understand her journey and some of the subtleties that we couldn’t put into the film. And then if they’re interested in how the movie came about and how we work together and how the storytelling happened, I’m there,” Rock said.
The two filmmakers hope that people will be able to find some empathy for the victims of violence without dwelling on or glorifying it, and said that this event is a place where they can create more awareness and interest in the topic of their film.
Frenkel added that their film and its depiction of violence against women is especially topical after the events of the Oct. 7 attack and hopes that the film is thought-provoking to attendees.
“These individual, community-based screenings are very important and very powerful to bring members of the same community together to, in a sense, talk about these topics,” Rock said. “We find that seeing any film with an audience is a much more dynamic experience, because someone will laugh, and you can feel the intention in the audience and you share it together.”
Seltzer said that interest in this program grew over the course of the last year, with around 40 people attending the first session, and around 120 by spring 2024.
For more information about the films and where to sign up, visit the JCC website at jcc.org.
