Jewish Film Festival opens Wednesday

By Joe Brown

Monday, Jan. 14, 2008 | 3:18 p.m.

Joshua Abbey is throwing a film festival on Wednesday. As of Monday morning, he didn't have a movie screen.

Abbey's festival is no pisher--this is the seventh annual Jewish Film Festival, we're talking about, screening nine films, all Nevada premieres, beginning this Wednesday, Jan. 16, through Saturday, Jan. 20, at the Summerlin Library and Performing Arts Center.

This Wednesday. No screen. Oy.

For the last six years, Abbey says, the festival has drawn capacity crowds to the Century Theatres at the Suncoast Hotel and Casino.

"But Century got sold to Cinemark which is based in Plano, Texas, and those good ol' boys in Texas didn't want to continue the sponsorship that Century provided," Abbey says. "Maybe they didn't relate to a Jewish film festival. So this year we had to go to a different venue."

The festival found a new home at the theater at the Summerlin Theater, which Abbey says is a beautiful venue, though it seats just 300 to the Century's 400. Which to Abbey means tighter demand for tickets. "It's going to be a hot ticket item to get in there," he says.

So far, so good. But the Summerlin Library's screen just wasn't big enough.

"We tried to find one to rent locally, but no one had dimensions that worked with our projector," he says. "One company wanted $390 a day. But I got lucky and found this incredible company called The Screen Works from Chicago. Because we're a nonprofit organization they're going to give me the whole week for a one-day rental," Abbey says, calling The Screen Works "super-mensches."

Even with that mitzvah in place, Abbey says he won't really exhale until Wednesday morning, when the 15x27-foot screen (complete with curtains) arrives at the airport--just in time to install it before the festival's first screening at 7 p.m. "Naked Among Wolves" tells the true story of Buchenwald concentration camp prisoners who risked their lives to hide a small Jewish boy from their Nazi captors (this screening is free, but seating is limited).

Read Wednesday's Las Vegas Sun for another story about the Jewish Film Festival. The complete festival lineup is available here or call 794-0090.