Carmel Jewish Film Festival Celebrates 10th Anniversary with Award-Winning Movies, Speakers

Carmel Jewish Film Festival Celebrates 10th Anniversary with Award-Winning Movies, Speakers, Receptions March 7 – 22, 2020 The 10th Annual Carmel Jewish Film Festival (CJFF), featuring 10 films from six countries, noted speakers, and panel discussions, will be held March 7-22, 2020.

Carmel, CA, December 17, 2019 - The 10th Annual Carmel Jewish Film Festival (CJFF), featuring 10

films from six countries, noted speakers, and panel discussions, will be held March 7-22, 2020. Film and venue information, dates, and times can be found on the CJFF website (www.carmeljff.org ). Tickets will be available either through the website or by calling (800) 838-3006 starting at the beginning of January.

Media interviews will be available in late January or early February with three outstanding individuals who will appear at this year’s festival: *Alexandra Silber: Born in Los Angeles, California, Grammy-nominated artist Alexandra Silber received her formal training at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, graduating with a degree in Acting, and just days later, at the age of twenty-one, made her professional and West End debut as Laura Fairlie in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Woman in White.Alexandra's British stage work includes Hodel in the Sheffield Crucible’s 2007 production of Fiddler on the Roof, and its subsequent West End transfer, and Julie Jordan in Carousel at The Savoy Theatre in London’s West End (for which she received a TMA Award for Best Performance in a Musical). She also appeared at the BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall with the John Wilson Orchestra. Alexandra made her American acting debut in a revival of her portrayal of Julie Jordan for Reprise Theater Company in Los Angeles, her New York theater debut portraying The Young Wife in the Transport Group’s Revival of Michael John LaChiusa’s Hello Again (Drama League Award), and later that year played opposite Tony-Award winner Tyne Daly in Terrence McNally’s Master Class at the Kennedy Center. She made her Broadway debut in the same production (called by Backstage one of the great theater performances of 2011), and played Sara Jane in the highly-acclaimed Arlington—a new one woman, tour-de-force musical at the Vineyard Theater (Outer Critics Circle Nomination for Best Solo Performance). Alexandra recently completed a run on Broadway as Tzeitel in the Tony-nominated revival of Fiddler of the Roof directed by Barlett Sher, and starring 6-time Tony

Nominee Danny Burstein as Tevye.On screen she appeared in Stephen King's 1408 starring John Cusack, and has been a Guest Star on Elementary, The Mysteries of Laura and Law & Order. Alexandra was honored to be a part of Barbara Cook’s Spotlight Series at The Kennedy Center, and made her Carnegie Hall debut singing the role of Nina in a concert performance of Song Of Norway with the Collegiate Chorale and American Symphony Orchestra. She was nominated for a 2014 Grammy Award for her portrayal of Maria (opposite Cheyenne Jackson as Tony) with the San Francisco Symphony in a concert presentation of West Side Story, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, and performed on the 57th Grammy Award broadcast with Cheyenne Jackson.

Alexandra Silber will entertain following the March 7 Opening Night film Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles and talk about her book, After Anatevka. A reception will precede the film. *Cookie Segelstein, violin and viola, received her Masters degree in Viola from The Yale School of Music in 1984. Until moving to California in 2010, she was principal violist in Orchestra New England and assistant principal in The New Haven Symphony, and served on the music faculty at Southern Connecticut State University. She is the founder and director of Veretski Pass, a member of Budowitz, The Youngers of Zion with Henry Sapoznik, has performed with Kapelye, The Klezmatics, Frank London, Klezmer Fats and Swing with Pete Sokolow and the late Howie Leess, Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys, and The Klezmer Conservatory Band.

Cookie has presented lecture demonstrations and workshops on klezmer fiddling all over the world, including at Yale University, University of Wisconsin in Madison, Marshall University in Huntington, West VA, University of Virginia in Charlottesville, University of Oregon in Eugene, Pacific University, SUNYCortland, and at Klezmerwochen in Weimar, Germany.

She is a regular staff member at Living Traditions' Klez Kamp, Klezmerquerque, Klez Kanada, Klez California, Klezmer Festival Fürth, Klezfest London, and has been a performing artist at Centrum's Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, Wash.

She was featured on the ABC documentary, “A Sacred Noise,” heard on HBO’s “Sex and the City,” appears in the Miramax film, “Everybody’s Fine” starring Robert De Niro, and heard on several recordings, including the Veretski Pass self-titled release, Trafik, and The Klezmer Shul, Budowitz Live, the Koch International label with Orchestra New England in The Orchestral Music of Charles Ives, Hazònes with Frank London, A Living Tradition with the late Moldovan clarinetist, German Goldenshteyn, Fleytmuzik with Adrianne Greenbaum, and Budowitz Live.

She is also the publisher of "The Music of..." series of klezmer transcriptions. Active as a Holocaust educator and curriculum advisor, she has been a frequent lecturer at the Women’s Correctional Facility in Niantic, CT. She is on the boards of both the North California Viola Society, and the American String Teacher Association, Bay Area chapter. Cookie is also an Apple Certified Support Professional, and owns and operates The Macmama. Cookie lives in Berkeley, California with her husband, Josh Horowitz, 2 cats, a dog and her occasionally visiting adult children.

Following the film Violins of Hope on Sunday, March 8, Cookie Segelstein will play some the actual instruments, tell their stories, and talk about the cultural significance of music in Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. This program is part of Violins of Hope San Francisco Bay Area, presented in association with Music at Kohl Mansion, Burlingame, CA. A reception will precede the film, and a private reception with Cookie Segelstein at a private home will follow the event. * Éva Gárdos is an award-winning film director and editor born in Hungary. Francis Ford Coppola gave Gardos her first job in film, working as a production assistant on Coppola’s epic Apocalypse Now in the Philippines. “That was my film school.”

She went on to establish a career as a film editor (Valley Girl, Mask, Bastard Out of Carolina), working with distinguished directors such as Barbet Schroeder, Peter Bogdanovich, and Anjelica Huston. Éva’s screenwriting and feature film directorial debut, An American Rhapsody, starred a young Scarlett Johansson. The film is based on the true life events of Éva’s family escaping from Hungary in the 1950’s and being forced to leave their infant child (Éva) behind. Éva spent six years in Hungary with foster parents before rejoining her biological parents in America. The film won many prizes on the Festival Circuit and was released by Paramount Classics.

After discovering the bestselling Hungarian novel, Budapest Noir, she returned to Hungary to develop and direct the film version, "After making Rhapsody, a very personal story, I was excited by the idea of making a genre film with suspense and action." Set in 1936, when Hungary was on the verge of embracing facism, the film resonates the politics of today. It premiered at the Chicago Film Festival, and has played at many other festivals such as Palm Springs, Denver, Shanghai. It will be released in the US

by Menemsha Films mid 2019.

Amongst her current projects is Cindy in Iraq inspired by the true life events of a Cindy Morgan a truck driver from Arkansas having fallen on hard times, left her home and children to work as a contractor for KBR Halliburton during the height of the Iraqi war.

The CJFF will host a Q&A with award-winning filmmaker Éva Gardos following the film Budapest Noir on Saturday, March 14.

CONTACT Susan Greenbaum 831-277-3211 greenbaumcarmel@sbcglobal.net Contact: Marci Bracco Cain Chatterbox PR

Salinas, CA 93901 (831) 747-7455 http://www.carmeljff.org