Today's the day for the Jewdas film fest

As announced in an earlier post, the Jewdas film fest takes place today: Here are the details:

Sunday September 2 nd, Noon, Rio Cinema, E8, London

Entrance £5 (tickets on 0207 241 9410)

“Outside the mainstream because of their race, spiritual practices, sexuality, gender and politics, young Jews build radical communities”

Four hours of documentaries and performance that will open your eyes to an alternative way of thinking Jewish.

Political, controversial, fun, and forward-thinking, this is not a place for Streisands or Fiddlers on Roofs. From gay rights to comic books, from vegans to the Middle East, all issues for modern Jewry will be explored on screen.

The screening includes the European premiere of American doc Young, Jewish and Left and the UK’s first cinema screening of a lost classic from 1980, Joel Sucher and Steven Fischler’s “The Free Voice of Labour – the Jewish Anarchists”

Meanwhile, be entertained by music from Brighton’s Le Band Extraordinaire; comedy from Miriam Elia; and a masterclass in Jewla-hooping (aka Jewish hula-hooping). Plus taste extreme Jewish food and prepare for surprises.

The Films

Young, Jewish and Left (Dir: Irit Reinheimer & Konnie Michael Chameides) – A celebration of diversity, Young Jewish and Left weaves queer culture, Jewish Arab history, secular Yiddishkeit, anti-racist analysis, and religious/spiritual traditions into a multi-layered tapestry of Leftist politics. Personal experiences from many of today’s leading Jewish activists reframe the possibilities of Jewish identity. It presents a fresh and constructive take on race, spirituality, Zionism, queerness, resistance, justice, and liberation.

“ Proves that the legacy of Jewish socialists, anarchists, feminists, Yippies, hippies, organizers, and agitators of the past century lives on” (Jennifer Belyer)

The Free voice of Lab our – the Jewish Anarchists (Dir: Joel Sucher and Steven Fischler) - From 1980, a film about the Yiddish-speaking anarchists who played a key role in the unionization of the garment trades before World War I. Utilises interviews with actual participants, stills, newsreel footage, Yiddish songs and poems to document the movement's contribution to the U.S. Labour movement between 1880 and the First World War.

“nothing short of a treasure as the story of how a passion for a `mother tongue' and an anarchist vision produced a movement that had an important effect on the growth of the American labour movement." (American Anthropologist)

Confession – A Film about Ariel Schrag (Dir: Sharon Barnes) - Exploring 23 year-old Jewish comic-book artist Ariel Schrag's world in which she negotiates fame, obsesses about disease, and discusses the way she sees as a dyke comic book artist. Schrag's autobiographical work is of vital importance because it chronicles the underground world of teen dyke culture in all of its raw, sexual, and complicated glory- in a way that is rarely recognized or represented in mainstream art, literature, or media.

Plus other surprise shorts and archive films

Nearest station Dalston Kingsland (on Silverlink), or alternatively get a bus from Highbury and Islington

But hurry, it starts in a little under an hour and a half.