\”Jews are not cultured people,\” she complains. The other woman disagrees.\n\n\”They are cultured,\” she insists, \”they are just different.\”
Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts takes you to \”funkel town.\” It\’s Art Garfunkel in concert this evening, singing American tunes from his days with Paul Simon, as well as solo pieces from days since.
The Liberty Film Festival, now in its third year, aims to present and promote the work of conservative filmmakers who, according to the organizers, are ignored, persecuted and otherwise absent from \”Hollywood.\”\n\nI put Hollywood in quotes because its meaning, as the evening at the Luxe Bel Air Hotel wore on, was elusive.
More than 80 studio executives, producers, directors, lawyers, agents, distributors and rabbis all enjoyed a Shabbat dinner together in the south of France. For some, Shabbat was a new experience. For others, a weekly ritual. Still for others, it was simply another networking event.
Cohen became first an accomplished poet and then, starting with 1967\’s \”Songs of Leonard Cohen\” (which contained the oft-recorded \”Suzanne\”) a singer-songwriter. According to Ira Nader\’s Cohen biography, \”Various Positions,\” Cohen\’s Judaism has influenced his songs greatly — \”Who By Fire\” is based on the melody of a Yom Kippur prayer, \”Mi Bamayim, Mi Ba Esh,\” and \”If It Be Your Will\” is derived from a \”Kol Nidre\” phrase.
The filmmaker, who is also Jewish, relates to her subjects because she was once obsessed with the scale.
Lee Hirsch struggled for nine years to make \”Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony,\” which won the audience and Freedom of Expression Awards at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and opens today in Los Angeles.
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