With a dozen films over 15 days, the 2014 Twin Cities Jewish Film Festival is a showcase of zany comedy, dark police drama and heart-warning historical documentary. With screenings at both Minneapolis's Sabes Jewish Community Center and the Jewish Community Center of the Greater St. Paul Area, the series offers features in English and subtitled Hebrew, German, Spanish and Arabic, running from Oct. 19 through Nov. 2. The charming "Dancing in Jaffa" opens the festival at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Sabes JCC. Getting fifth-grade boys and girls to dance together is tough. It's tougher still when the students are a diverse mix of Palestinian Israelis and Israeli Jews. That's the challenge ballroom dance champion Pierre Dulaine took on. When boys and girls dance together, Dulaine's theory goes, they will see a person, not a vilified abstraction. A fey, theatrical fellow, Dulaine is a natural camera subject. Whether the cross-cultural friendships begun here will stand the test of time is anyone's guess, but it's a start. On Thursday at 7:30, the subject is the legendary New York fish market "Russ& Daughters," whose history since 1914 (including four generations and 1,800,000 pounds of pickled herring) is celebrated in "The Sturgeon Queens." The 52-minute documentary interviews scores of the late owner Joel Russ's descendents and fans as diverse as actress Maggie Gyllenhaal and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The screening is at the St. Paul JCC. Oct. 23 at 7:30 there's "Zero Motivation," an Israeli "Private Benjamin"-style satire of female military misfits. Variety called the film – nominated for a record-maker 12 Ophir awards, the equivalent of Oscars – "a biting, darkly comic look at the life of the women of the Israeli military [that] showed audiences that for these female secretaries and paper-pushers, boredom can be just as dangerous as battle." For a full listing of films and accompanying events, visit http://tcjfilmfest.org/films-and-events.php. You can purchase tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/producer/247176, call the Box Office at 952-381-3499, or email tickets@sabesjcc.org.
