2022 Diaspora and Art Film Festival

Adventures of a Mathematician by Thor Klein

Biography, Drama | 2021 | 102 min | English

Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films

https://vimeo.com/r/3tGl/MzBSZzFSSi

The eventful life of Polish-Jewish mathematician Stanislaw Ulam. Polish immigrant and talented mathematician Stan Ulam moves to the U.S. and receives an intriguing job offer that takes him and his wife to New Mexico.

The film tells an unknown story about Stan Ulam who joined the Manhattan Project during World War II. Tackling on immigration, the Holocaust and the dangers of nuclear weapons, the film explains why European refugees, scientists and mathematicians working at Los Alamos - were so strongly motivated in creating an atomic bomb that could help defeat Nazi Germany.

Surrounded by young, eccentric, charismatic immigrant scientists working top-secret work on a nuclear bomb, while desperately trying to help his sister escape Nazi-occupied Poland, Stan teams up with Hungarian Jewish genius Johnny von Neumann to create the first computer giving birth to the digital age as Europe bursts into flames.

As film critic Nora Lee Mandel from  Maven's Nest,  put it “Polish filmed bio-pic of Stan Ulam before, during and after Los Alamos in hot house of (mostly) Eastern European Jews fighting Nazis then Communists with math and science.”

BERENSHTEIN by Roman Shumunov

Drama |105 min | 2021 | Russian, English subtitles

https://vimeo.com/679137861

Password 1941

A fascinating story of Leonid Bernstein, who was a partisan battalion commander during WWII. In an old house in the modest neighborhood of Kiryat Ata, neighbors did not imagine that the old man who lives next door is the last living commander of a partisan battalion in World War II. He is the man who located the secret facility where the Germans developed their last hope for victory - the V-2 missiles. In his confession, Berenshtein returns to the past and reveals the sights that accompany his whole life - women and children burned before his eyes, partisans whom he executed for violence against civilians, his brilliant war tactics, the love of his life which he relinquished, his encounter with the Holocaust and the moment he chose to refuse an order, break into a German prison and release Jews sentenced to death. In the last moments of his life, he faces the decisions he made and recounts how he found not only Hitler's doomsday weapon, but himself. But beyond the medals, lies a wonderful story of a young Jewish orphan who becomes a leader, survives against all odds and succeeds to preserve his identity.

He was responsible for destroying the development facility of the terrifying Nazi V-2 rocket, the last hope of Hitler to change the outcome of war. Attached Vimeo link to the movie where you can download it in high resolution(original quality).

1618 by Luis Ismael
Portugal | 2020 | 81 min | Portuguese, English subtitles

Main Cast: Mafalda Banquart, Afonso Pacheco, Paulo Manso, Heitor Lourenço, Pedro Laginha, Francisco Beatriz, Catarina Lacerda

https://vimeo.com/r/3tGk/MzBSZzFSSi

 1618 is an important project initiated by the Jewish community of Porto, which turned its past into a gripping historical film. The film’s main action unfolds in places similar to those existing at the time that has meanwhile been destroyed. Many characters actually existed in real life and took part in the facts as narrated in the film. 1618 is a detailed, splendid, richly dramatized and designed historical drama, and its protagonist is the entire Sephardic community of the Portuguese city of Porto. It is the 17 century, and as the Inquisition continues to persecute the Portuguese Jews, it sends Visitador Sebastião Noronha to the region. António Álvares, a family man and a member of his community, will become the biggest obstacle to Noronha’s actively Antisemitic plans. Álvares will do it not by fighting evil with evil, but by creating an escape plan for all those who are in danger because of who they are. 

Temporarily Closed by Semyon Pinkhasov

Documentary | USA | 2020 | 26 min | English

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yelg9E_MFeI

The head of Covid 19 has reached New York. The normal life of the city was suspended.

Empty streets, closed shops, restaurants and theaters. Empty City’s  buses and subway. Nearly deserted Central Park. Yet, little by little life beginning to come back, and by the fall you are starting to feel City's pulse again.

Interview with Katya Soldak

"Kontact" 4/1/2022

https://1drv.ms/v/s!Arr46ibHJM46mC2tL22nT98Sl_EJ?e=l7qRnG

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Maya Pritsker about the RACC’s Diaspora Film Festival

"Kontact" 4/9/22022

https://1drv.ms/v/s!Arr46ibHJM46mUmYh8MSW0hJtbNP?e=yrPYB8

pw: rtn

Interview with Dr. Regina Khidekel | Voice of America - April 19, 2022 | by Oleg Sulkin

"В Нью-Йорке проходит десятый Кинофестиваль диаспоры и искусства"

This program is made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Cojeco and Tianaderrah Foundation.