arts & culture
Philadelphia Jewish Film and Media
Adds Spring Festival to Calendar
Jarrad Saffren | Staff Writer
Photo by Mario Manzoni
P hiladelphia Jewish Film and
Media is bringing back its
spring film series for the first
time since 2019. Only this time, it will
be a festival: the Lindy Springfest,
from March 25-April 1. And like PJFM’s
Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival in
November, the spring event will be
back in person.

On March 25, the Weitzman National
Museum of American Jewish History
hosts opening night: a screening of
“March ’68” at 7:30 p.m. The feature-
length drama focuses on a Jewish
woman, Hania, who along with her
lover must escape the persecution of
an antisemitic government in Poland.

A week later, on April 1, the Weitzman
will again welcome festival-goers,
only this time for closing night.

“Haute Couture,” a drama about a
seamstress and a thief who form an
unexpected friendship, also begins
at 7:30 p.m.

PJFM is planning screenings through-
out the week, including a Sunday
morning showing of “The Prince of
Egypt.” The Weitzman is hosting most
of the screenings, but Gratz College
and the Bryn Mawr Film Institute are
staging a few.

A $150 all-access pass gets you to
the front of the line for each event.

General admission for screenings is
$15 for adults, $13 for seniors and $10
for students. Tickets can be bought at
phillyjfm.org. “When you go to the movies, even if
it’s a bad movie, even if it’s a silly, frivo-
lous movie, the excitement is when
it’s done and everybody is talking
about it,” said Matthew Bussy, PJFM’s
program director. “It’s that excitement
that drives people to go back to the
movies.” In November, Jews came back
out, according to Bussy. Total atten-
dance for the Philadelphia Jewish Film
People attend a screening during the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival.

Festival was 1,539. The average crowd
for a screening was 110. PJFM is spread-
ing the word through its ambassadors
at local synagogues and community
organizations, social media and the
Weitzman. A few hundred tickets have
sold so far.

“I don’t know if we’ll get the same
amount as last fall,” Bussy said. “But
I’m hopeful we’ll get a decent turnout.”
Jerry Silverman, a 73-year-old
Philadelphian who attends most PJFM
events, is planning on going to “almost
every single film” between March
25 and April 1. Silverman is a movie
buff. He even went to theaters during
COVID after they reopened. And while
he does watch some movies at home,
he said his dog “doesn’t really like to
laugh a lot.”
“Seeing a movie by yourself is not
seeing a movie,” he said. “It’s meant
to be seen with other human beings.”
Rachel Weinberg, a 29-year-old
filmmaker in New York City, has a film
in the festival called “Ibach,” about
a Philadelphia man who tends to
his family’s piano that escaped Nazi
Germany. It screens on March 30 at the
Weitzman. Weinberg will be there. She
said that it is “special” to both see her
work come to life on screen and watch
an audience react. As a maker of short
films, she often posts her work online
on sites like Vimeo. But while online
comments tell her something, they are
just not the same.

“Films are made to entertain and take
you out of your regular life,” she said.

“March ’68,” “Haute Couture” and
“The Prince of Egypt” are the main
events. But there are several other
movies playing during the week. “The
City Without Jews,” playing March 26
at 8 p.m. at the Weitzman, is a 1924
silent film that takes viewers into a
town where the government passes a
law excommunicating Jews. Another
feature-length film, “SHTTL,” playing at
Gratz on March 27 and the Weitzman
on March 29, takes you into a shtetl
in Soviet-era Ukraine where residents
are grappling with the possibility of a
Nazi invasion.

And for true movie fans, short-film
night at the Weitzman on March 30
has some fascinating human-interest
stories. “Women of Virtue” is about
a 9-year-old girl who is blessed by
the community after her first period,
only to be told later that “women are
impure during menstruation,” accord-
ing to a synopsis from PJFM’s event
program. “Favorite Daughter” is about a girl
who quarantines with her mother and
grandmother during the lockdown in
2020. According to that event program,
“they laugh, reminisce about past
relationships and remind one another
that no matter how scary the world
gets, they will always be there for each
other.” ■
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