Saturday, September 29, 2007

EMAIL TO EVERYONE!

Hundreds of emails have been sent out to various Jewish organizations asking for help to get the word out about our film. Until now, no one!!! NO ONE!!! has replied.

As the target emails didn’t seem to work- I’m sending it out here to everyone on cyber space:

Hi Friends,
A new film about the battle to keep Yiddish Theater alive in the US in the 21st century is coming to theaters in NYC and Los Angeles in November.
I am an award winning Israeli director and will attend the screenings.

The film is scheduled to play for a week, but if we get enough advanced ticket sales, we’ll get additional screenings.
We would be grateful if you could help us get the word out, so that we’ll be able to bring our message about the importance of keeping Yiddish theater alive to a larger community.

Here’s the info about the film:


Our website: www.yiddishtheater.net
Our myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/yiddisht heateralovestory

As for the screening dates. Opening dates are:

IN LA- starting Nov 30 2007
http://www.laemmle.com/viewmovi e.php?mid=3304

In NYC - starting Nov 21 2007

(Please scroll down to the bottom of the homepage for info about our
film and screening dates and times as well as advance ticket sales.:)

http://www.twoboots.com/pioneer/jewish.html

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007



Cover of TAU's website.

So I just noticed we're on the cover of TAU's website...
TAU is not a religion, but TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY.
Both I and my producer Ravit Markus were graduates. Many gradautes of many colleges leaving with a mixed baggage. There's something of closing a circle when you're on the cover of their homepage.

Slowly, painfully, but surely our Yiddish theater film is getting the word out there...

"Yiddish Theatre" Comes Home
Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Two TAU graduates are bringing their acclaimed documentary film, "Yiddish Theatre: A Love Story" to Manhattan and Los Angeles.

Writer-director Dan Katzir and producer Ravit Markus, both graduates of TAU, will see the long-awaited Manhattan premiere of their 2006 full-length documentary film, "Yiddish Theatre: A Love Story", this November. The film has played in festivals in the U.S. and Canada - and even in Queens, New York - but this will be the first time it is shown in the borough where it was conceived and shot.

Katzir, born in Tel Aviv in 1969, is the recipient of 22 international awards for filmmaking. After graduating magna cum laude from TAU's Department of Film and Television, he earned an MFA from the American Film Institute in Hollywood. Although he was raised in a prominent Israeli family that disdained the Yiddish language, Katzir became enthralled with the subject during a vacation in New York City in 2000 when he met an elderly Holocaust survivor and Yiddish theatre diva, Zypora Spaisman. Zypora’s passion and determination to preserve her art form inspired Katzir to follow her through a bitter cold New York City Hanukah as she struggled to raise funds in an effort to save the oldest running Yiddish Theater in America.

Ravit Markus also graduated from TAU's Department of Film and Television and her collaboration with Katzir is her second project as a producer. She has worked on several projects for television which have aired on Israeli, American and British TV and is now collaborating on her first feature film, "LEAP", with Dan Katzir. Ms. Markus resides in Los Angeles.

"Yiddish Theatre: A Love Story" was made with generous contributions from Jona and Doretta Goldrich and Max and Anna Webb, long-time supporters of American Friends of Tel Aviv University. Mr. Goldrich is a Chairman Emeritus of AFTAU and a member of the AFTAU Board of Directors and the TAU Board of Governors. Mr. Webb is a founder of AFTAU, and serves on the AFTAU Board of Directors and the TAU Board of Governors.

In Manhattan, "Yiddish Theatre: A Love Story", runs from November 21st through November 28th at the Two Boots Pioneer Theatre on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The film also opens in downtown Los Angeles on November 30th at Laemmle's Grand 4-plex Cinema.

Follow the links below for more information on both the Manhattan and Los Angeles releases of the film.

http://twoboots.com/pioneer/jewish.html

http://www.laemmle.com/viewmovie.php?mid=3304

http://www.tauac.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5801

Saturday, September 22, 2007


Yiddish Theater: A Love Story getting a theatrical release in NY, LA and Tel Aviv


Great news - our film is getting a theatrical release in LA, NYC and Tel Aviv in November.
It's very exciting indeed. Without a budget, and with very little support from large Jewish organizations, we're still managing to get our film out there - the full indie way, with grass roots marketing.
It's hard, but it's an exciting adventure.

Today I found an article written about us in an online magazine called JEWTASTIC -
A magazine for hip happenings in the jewish world.

Here's the link+ the full article:

http://www.jewtastic.com/posts/24362

Loving Yiddish Theatre
by Leslie Bunder September 19th, 2007

An Israeli filmmaker is to get his six years in the making documentary released on how a number of Jewish woman are keeping Yiddish theatre alive in the United States.

Where once Yiddish theatre was part of many Jews’ social lives going out to see productions in New York, it has dwindled over the years as performers switched from Yiddish to mainstream productions and the famous theatres themselves being turned into other buildings and offices.

Dan Katzir’s Yiddish Theater: A Love Story will be screened in Los Angeles, New York and Tel Aviv in November and features some of the major names in modern Yiddish theatre including Shifra Lerer, Felix Fibich and Seymour Rechzeit.

The inspiration for the film came in 2000 when Katzir came across Zypora Spaisman, a Holocaust survivor in her 80s from Poland who invited him to watch a show she was in and over the next six years, Katzir got to know her and others in the Yiddish theatre community and the issues they face in keeping it alive.

According to Katzir: “It’s a feature length film about the extraordinary woman who kept Yiddish theater alive in the US into the 21st century. It’s also a poetic film about the power of the human spirit.”

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