Jewish Clevelanders’ films to reel in spotlight at CIFF
The 48th Cleveland International Film Festival will feature three films influenced by native Jewish Clevelanders. The 48th Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) will feature three films influenced by native Jewish Clevelanders. The event, which runs from April 3 through April 13, will showcase 48 films at Playhouse Square in downtown Cleveland. The films include "What's Next?" and "Yaniv," which tells the story of Dr. Howard Tucker, whose grandson, Austin Tucker, attended New York University with film student Taylor Tanglianetti, who was inspired by his grandfather's experiences. Tanganetti and Tucker expanded their story into a feature-length documentary. "YanIV" is the product of former Beachwood High School students Amnon Carmi and Benjamin Ducoff, who both grew up being congregants of Park Synagogue and now live in New York.
Published : 4 weeks ago by STEVE MARK in Lifestyle
The 48th Cleveland International Film Festival will feature three films influenced by native Jewish Clevelanders.
The event, which runs from April 3 through April 13, will showcase 48 films at Playhouse Square in downtown Cleveland.
The three films with Jewish connections are “What’s Next?” “Yaniv,” and “Unspoken.”
“What’s Next,” which will be presented on April 7, tells the story of 101 (102 in July) year-old Cleveland neurologist, Dr. Howard Tucker. Tucker’s grandson, Austin Tucker, attended New York University with film student Taylor Tanglianetti, who was enamored with the story of Austin’s grandfather, who still teaches medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
“Austin would always share his grandfather’s activities with me throughout the years and after I graduated from NYU, the (COVID-19) pandemic hit,” Tanglianetti told the Cleveland Jewish News. “Austin’s grandfather was sneaking out the house to save lives at his hospital. I was looking to create my first feature in the middle of the pandemic, and I thought this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to tell this story. He really taught me we should not overlook or undervalue our seniors. He’s always giving me a sense of the important things in life.”
Austin, who attended the Hawken School in Chester Township and whose family is a congregant of Park Synagogue in Pepper Pike, was a business major at NYU. He learned a lot about his grandfather during the filmmaking process, he said.
“He’s very humble,” Tucker told the CJN. “If you ask him specifically about something he’s done, he’s happy to share his stories, but it’s not something he simply boasts about.”
Tanglianetti and Tucker initially collaborated during pandemic to create a short film on Tucker’s saga, which includes his service as chief or neurology for the Atlantic Fleet in the Korean War. The short was finished in 2021, and the two concluded the story needed to be expanded to a feature-length documentary, told through the lens of Austin’s eyes.
“Their relationship was just so fascinating and Dr. Tucker opened up so much more to Austin,” Taglianetti said. “The age difference and their relationship became something that at first seemed more formal and turned to something more tender and intimate, and I’m really grateful to have been able to witness that. Throughout this process of filming my grandfather and coming back to Cleveland every few months, it sort of became clear to me that I was on this journey with him,” Tucker, who works for Paramount Television in New York, said. “We obviously became much closer throughout that process, and I’ve been able to understand him a lot better and learn from him.”
“Yaniv,” which will be shown on April 10, is the product of former Beachwood High School students and best friends, Amnon Carmi and Benjamin Ducoff. Both grew up being congregants of Park Synagogue and now live in New York.
After attending Cleveland Institute of Art, Camri moved to New York to work in graphic design and animation. Ducoff attended Boston University before moving to Chicago briefly, then landed in New York, where his “day job” is as a teacher in the New York City Public Schools in the Bronx.
Camri and Ducoff collaborated as producers of an in-app game show. They had become fans of the Israeli card game, “Yariv,” and one day concluded the game would be an entertaining subject for a film.
“We had an idea when we were playing the game,” Camri told the CJN. “What if this was played, underground, by the Hassidic community? “We both lit up and we couldn’t get it out of our heads. We had no choice but to write it. We both love the absurdist comedy angle of things. When the idea came about, people were furrowing their brows, but for us it made very clear sense, and at no point were we surprised with the outcome.”
The budding filmmakers were concerned about production costs, especially when trying to build a simulation casino. Ducoff’s grandfather was in the display business in Detroit. His cousin offered his studio, and took care of labor costs.
“You can’t film in a casino, so we had to build one,” Ducoff told the CJN. “The nightclub we wanted to portray didn’t exist in real life, so we had to build the whole thing. My cousin had a shop, the lumber, a sound stage and the lights, and he made this possible. All of that would have cost something like $1 million in New York City to create, and this is how we were able to make this movie.”
As with Taglianetti and Tucker in “What’s Next?” Camri’s and Ducoff’s idea took shape during the pandemic. During that process, Carmi decided to spend all of his efforts on filmmaking.
Cami is the director, producer, co-writer, editor and actor in “Yaniv.” Ducoff is the lead actor, co-writer and co-producer. The film has been shown in various pop-up screenings in New York.
“We didn’t have a distributor early on,” Ducoff, 31, said. “We didn’t have any festival laurels. So we started booking theaters on our own, calling JCC’s and synagogues. That started to work well for us.
The best friends now have a distributor, Menemsha Films.
“We’ve already done some screenings around New York and we have sold out places,” Camri, 31, said. “The proof is there that it is a crowd pleaser. The more people, the better the time.”
“Unspoken,” to be shown in Cleveland on April 7, is the work of former Beachwood resident Jeremy Borison, who attended Fuchs Mizrachi School in Beachwood before heading to Israel for a year to study at a yeshiva. He returned to the United States to study film at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and moved to Los Angeles in 2015 to chase his filmmaking dreams.
Borison, who is gay, spent a five-year process working on “Unspoken,” which chronicles Borison’s upbringing and examines the challenges of the LBGTQ world.
“People are different in terms of what they want to share and not share,” Borison, 32, told the CJN. “So, I took that and applied it in this movie to reflect my own personal upbringing.
“I’m very thankful and very lucky that my family is very supportive and my friends are extremely supportive. And I did have some pretty bad experiences along the way. But they also taught me how to be patient and also how to have empathy for other people.
“In many ways, anytime you hear an LGBT story, it is when somebody has just come out already, because that’s where people are comfortable hearing it, especially in religious communities. So for me, this was a really important story to share, even if it was going to be hard. I just knew I needed to get it out there.”
Borison came out at the age of 19 in 2011.
The first screening of “Unspoken” was in London in mid-March, and Borison said he was pleased with audience reaction.
“We got some really incredible responses there,” said Borison.“We have anoth-er five or six screenings lined up for the next two months already. “The reactions have been amazing.”
Borison released a previous film in 2019 that focused on a Holocaust survivor and her granddaughter, and the secrets they held. Now, with “Unspoken” on his filmmaking resume, Borison said he is energized about telling more stories.
“I realized pretty early that I was always very affected by films not just as a medium of entertainment, but also as a medium to get messages across,” he said. “This was a way for me to not necessarily make a difference, but make an impact through empathy and through sharing stories that people don’t usually get to see. So when I decided to actually make this, I knew I was in it for the long run. I knew that it was really going to make a difference for so many other people.
“A lot of people who came out in our community have lost their families or saw themselves really isolated. But I’m very lucky that I have a supportive family. I have a husband who is very supportive. And so I’m in a place where I don’t have to worry about sharing my story. I’m privileged to be the one to speak up.”
The Cleveland Jewish News and its sister magazine, Canvas, are media partners of the CIFF. Readers can use the code MEDIA48 for a $1 discount per ticket.
Topics: Jewish