Images of the past and present

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what's the value of a film? This year's International Conference on Jewish Genealogy is focusing on images.

As part of the 24-film program; many filmmakers will personally introduce their films, and there will be a panel of eight filmmakers, "Visual Storytelling: The Genealogical Documentary," on Wednesday evening, August 16.

Filmmakers will discuss how to unearth memories and discover a family's history. Their own film clips will illustrate the creative process and what it takes to produce the final product.

Panelists are Eileen Douglas and Ron Steinman ("My Grandfather's House," "Luboml"), Pearl Gluck ("Divan"), Menachem Daum ("Hiding and Seeking"), Yaron Zilberman ("Watermarks"), Elaine Kalman Naves ("Paradise Lost: Journey to Vaja"), Jay Heyman ("Bernie") and Marcia Rock ("Dancing With My Father").

On Monday, August 14 and Tuesday, August 15, these films will be introduced by their makers and screened, so attendees can view them before the panel presentation.

Festival films will be screened (some several times) Sunday through Thursday. Included are Academy Award-winning Best Documentary features: "The Last Days," produced by Steven Spielberg and the Shoah Foundation, and "Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kinderstransport," and an Emmy Award winner, "The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank," with Mary Steenburgen and Paul Scofield.

International Jewish films cover Austria, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Hungary, Slovakia, Transcarpathia, Galicia, France, Russia/Siberia, Israel and other Middle Eastern countries and the U.S.

Subjects include the Holocaust, concentration camp experiences, Jews in the resistance movement, journeys "home" to ancestral shtetls and memorials to vanished Eastern European communities. American topics focus on growing up in New York, Boro Park, Brooklyn; Cleveland, Ohio; Portland, Oregon; and the 25-year history of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles.

For more information, click www.jgsny2006.org/film_program.cfm, scroll to a film title and click. Many films will be available for sale by mail order.

See you at the movies!