Baton Rouge’s Jewish film festival provides an outlet for students trying to beat the monotonous “playing in theaters everywhere” movie dilemma with four days of unique cinematic experiences.
The fifth annual Baton Rouge Jewish Film Festival kicks off this week at the Manship Theatre downtown for a celebration of successful Jewish filmmakers, actors and directors. From foreign to domestic, dramas to comedies, the festival features a film for everyone — regardless of religious beliefs — and ensures an enriching experience for all.
Harvey Hoffman, co-chairman of the Baton Rouge Jewish Film Festival, said the festival gives exposure to communities that wouldn’t normally host similar events.
“Jewish film festivals started in the early 1980s in San Francisco and have been primarily in large metropolitan cities,” he said. “An organization out of Jackson, Miss., wanted to help smaller communities have film festivals, and [my wife and I] joined this group and started preparing for our first festival.”
The festival includes a terrific variety of films, Hoffman said.
“We have dramas, we have comedies, we have shorts and documentaries,” he said. “We’ve got quite a bit of everything. It’s well worth coming to see.”
A committee views films from around the world before making the final selections, Hoffman said.
“We have to come up with a balance so that we don’t have films all on one subject,” he said.
Hoffman said people should attend the film festival because there’s nothing like sitting in a theater and watching a film on a big screen.
“If you go to look at the newspaper to see what’s playing, all the theaters have the same thing,” he said. “It’s the same movies being played everywhere, and a lot of the really interesting films never make it to Baton Rouge, so this is an opportunity to see films and get people turned on to the idea of watching both domestic and foreign film.”
Allison Harrison, music education junior and president of the Jewish student organization on campus, Hillel at LSU, said the festival is important because it shows Baton Rouge has a Jewish community.
“It’s a way to expose the Jewish community in Baton Rouge in a good way,” she said. “And it’s a chance for Baton Rouge to get a dose of Jewish culture and community.”
Debbie Haseltine, program director for Hillel at LSU, said she is fascinated by many aspects of the event.
“While I am new to the Baton Rouge area and have not lived here for a film festival before, I am really impressed that the Jewish community comes together for this annual event,” she said. “Having lived in other cities with much larger Jewish populations, I can appreciate how much effort goes into hosting a film festival.”
Haseltine said the event is a “great opportunity” for University students and the Baton Rouge community as a whole.
“The Jewish Film Festival raises awareness about the Jewish people and issues [they face] on a regular basis through a medium that everyone enjoys,” she said. “From documentaries to comedies, several different genres of film educate both Jews and non-Jews about the traditions and history of the Jewish people.”
Theodore Williams, English senior and director of engagement and recruitment for Tigers for Israel, said it is imperative Baton Rouge holds a Jewish Film Festival.
“As the capital of such a diverse state, it is important for the Baton Rouge community to stand by principles of cultural commitment to diversity and inclusion,” he said.
The festival is valuable to the local community for many reasons, according to Williams.
“Living in a region with so much culture, we sometimes fail to appreciate other cultures of the world,” he said. “The festival can be very beneficial to anyone who participates because it celebrates a culture many Louisianans would not normally be exposed to.”
 
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Contact Cathryn Core at [email protected]