MOVIE REVIEW
&
The Gazette’s Guide to
Arts & Entertainment
FROM PARIS, WITH LOVE
Costner, Heard are plunged into madcap mayhem in ‘3 Days to Kill’ Page A-13
www.gazette.net
MUSIC
CENTER
AT
n WARTIME COURIER LIVED IN CHEVY CHASE AND TAUGHT AT GEORGETOWN
STRATHMORE
VIRGINIA TERHUNE
BY
STAFF WRITER
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NATIONAL
PHILHARMONIC
Honoring
KARSKI C
hevy Chase resident Susanne Lotarski remembers her Georgetown University political science professor, the late Jan Karski, also of Chevy Chase, as being very well-organized during his 1960s seminars about Central and Eastern Europe. “He had a very organized, systematic mind,” she said. But what she appreciated most about Karski, a courier for the Polish underground in World War II, was the fact that he had experienced firsthand some of what he was teaching. A Polish Catholic, Karski was one of the first people to bring eyewitness accounts to the Allies about the Warsaw ghetto after the uprising and the emerging Nazi plan to exterminate Jews. “What was so special about his course was that he was teaching not from books but from what he lived through personally,” said Lotarski, who retired in 2005 as director of Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia for the U.S. Department of Commerce. Lotarski, who is currently Washington Metro Division vice president of the nonprofit Polish
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
The memory of the late Jan Karski, a Polish American who lived in Chevy Chase, will be honored by the National Philharmonic and pianist Brian Ganz during two concerts on March 8 and 9 at the Music Center at Strathmore. Karski, who died in 2000, provided the Allies with personal eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust in Poland before emigrating to the United States and teaching political science at Georgetown University.
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Wednesday, February 26, 2014
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Page A-11
THE JEWISH
EXPERIENCE Filmmaker from Potomac presents ‘Sukkah City’ at annual festival n
BY
VIRGINIA TERHUNE STAFF WRITER
Montgomery County native Jason Hutt didn’t think after he graduated from Winston Churchill High School in Potomac and went to Harvard to study economics that he’d turn into a filmmaker. But a filmmaker he became, and WASHINGTON his documentary, “Sukkah City,” is one of 64 films that will be screened JEWISH FILM during the annual Washington Jewish FESTIVAL Film Festival running from Thursday to March 9 at venues in Rockville, Siln When: Thursday ver Spring and Washington, D.C. to March 9. See “The 24th annual event is expected online schedule for to draw 10,000 people from Washingscreenings. ton and surrounding counties,” said n Where: AFI Silver festival director Ilya Tovbis, who is in Theatre and Cultural his second year of running the event. Center, 8633 “One-quarter to one-third of our Colesville Road, audience comes from outside [the DisSilver Spring; JCC of trict],” Tovbis said. Greater Washington, There are 13 screenings scheduled 6125 Montrose Road, at AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural CenRockville; nine venues ter in Silver Spring and 10 screenings in Washington, D.C. at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington in Rockville. n Tickets: $12 single; $85 full festival pass; This year’s festival will also offer $125 all access VIP more chances for people to talk to one pass another about the films at social events and panel discussions, Tovbis said. n For information: “We don’t want it to be just 1-888-718-4253,
See JEWISH, Page A-14
wjff.org
See KARSKI, Page A-14
TRIBUTE TO POLAND n When: 8 p.m. March 8; 3 p.m. March 9. Free preconcert lecture 6:45 p.m. Saturday, 1:45 p.m. Sunday. Exhibit about Karski in lobby. n Where: Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda n Tickets: $28-$84. Free for children 7-17 n For information: 301-5815100, Nationalphilharmonic. org
PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER FARBER/COURTESY OF WASHINGTON JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL
Pianist Brian Ganz and the National Philharmonic will perform a concerto by Chopin during two concerts on March 8-9 at the Music Center at Strathmore to honor the late Polish-American hero Jan Karski of Chevy Chase. PHOTO BY MICHAEL VENTURA
The “Fractured Bubble” sukkah is woven as part of a design competition exploring the ancient Jewish tradition of building a temporary house as part of observing the week-long holiday of Sukkot. The mid-Atlantic premiere of Potomac-native Jason Hutt’s documentary, “Sukkah City,” about the contest is part of the Washington Jewish Film Festival.
SWEET HONEY KEEPS FLOWING
Time has been on Sweet Honey in the Rock’s side for 40 years n
BY
WILL C. FRANKLIN STAFF WRITER
“But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.” — Psalm 81:16 Bernice Johnson Reagon founded the group Sweet Honey in the Rock 40 years ago at the D.C.
Black Repertory Theater Company in 1973. The ensemble’s name is taken from a song based on the Bible verse Psalm 81:16. The allwomen, African-American a cappella group has played in concerts across the globe for adoring fans and for political dignitaries. Reagon retired from Sweet Honey in the Rock in 2004, but the group, featuring core members Carol Maillard, Louise Robinson, Nitanju Bolade Casel, Aisha Kahlil, and American Sign Language
See HONEY, Page A-14
SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK — “FORTY & FIERCE” n When: 8 p.m. Saturday n Where: Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda n Tickets: $29-$70
PHOTO BY DWIGHT CARTER STUDIO
Sweet Honey in the Rock will celebrate its 40th anniversary Saturday at the Music Center at Strathmore.
n For information: 301-581-5100; strathmore.org