Month: March 2019

Salem Film Fest spotlights local filmmakers, adds new Peabody Black Box Theater venue

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Hail,Satan!

Salem Film Fest will feature HAIL, SATAN? on Sunday, March 31 at 7:15 pm at The Cabot Theatre in Beverly.

 

By Shelley A. Sackett

 

On Friday, March 29, from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m., Salem Film Fest, one of New England’s leading all-documentary film festivals, will launch its 12th year with a kick-off party at Salem Arts Association at 211 Bridge St. Visiting filmmakers will be on hand to mingle with filmgoers prior to the first two features of the 70 short- and full-length film fest

 

“SFF always focuses on our filmmakers—we do everything we can to make their visits easy, fun and rewarding,” SFF Co-Founder and Director Joe Cultrera wrote in the program liner notes. Filmmakers are scheduled to be present at more than half the screenings, affording audiences the opportunity to learn about the documentary process and engage in intimate, thought-provoking conversations.

 

SFF2019 runs from March 29 to April 4, with films from around the globe screening at CinemaSalem, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the National Park Service Visitor Center in Salem; The Cabot and Endicott College’s Manninen Center for the Arts in Beverly, and the new Black Box Theater in downtown Peabody.

 

Salem Trolley will provide free weekend rides between cities so filmgoers can easily journey through 2019’s stellar lineup. A complete schedule of films, filmmaker receptions and music events, plus information on how to buy passes and individual tickets is at salemfilmfest.com.

 

One half dozen films this year are by filmmakers or about subjects with local connections.

 

Salem is well known for its historical connection to witchcraft. With Lynn native and director Penny Lane’s Hail, Satan?, its contemporary roots in sorcery may eclipse even the Salem Witch Trials for notoriety. The film’s subject is The Satanic Temple, a non-theistic religious organization with active chapters worldwide that is headquartered in Salem on Bridge St. Its co-founder, Lucien Greaves, is the film subject. Lane’s SFF North Shore Spotlight film questions the meaning of religious expression in a secular nation when The Satanic Temple campaigns to place a Satanic monument on the Arkansas State Capitol lawn. Greaves will answer questions after the screening on Sunday, March 31 at 7:15 p.m. at The Cabot.

Councilwoman

COUNCILWOMAN is SFF opening night film on Friday, March 29 at CinemaSalem at 7 pm.

 

Opening night’s Councilwoman is the first feature documentary directed by Watertown, MA-based Margo Guernsey. The film is at CinemSalem at 7 p.m. on Friday, March 29, and tells the story of a Dominican immigrant and hotel housekeeper in Providence, Rhode Island, who wins a coveted City Council seat. Guernsey has worked as a freelance director and producer in the Boston area since 2012 and will be on hand for a post-screening Q&A.

Marcos Doesn't Live Here Anymore

MARCOS DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE will screen on Wednesday, April 3 at 8 pm at CinemaSalem.

 

Filmmaker and Tufts University alumnus David Sutherland (Kind Hearted Woman, The Farmer’s Wife) has won over 100 international awards and citations for his films. On Wednesday, April 3 at 8 p.m., the New England premiere of Marcos Doesn’t Live Here Anymore will screen at CinemaSalem. Sutherland tells the heartbreaking story of Elizabeth Perez, a decorated Marine veteran, who fights to reunite her family amidst the trauma caused by America’s immigration policy after her undocumented husband is deported to Mexico. Sutherland will be on hand for a Q&A.

CAMOUFLAGE: VIETNAMESE BRUSH STROKES WITH HISTORY will screen on Saturday, March 30 at PEM at 10:20 am.

 

On Saturday, March 30, filmmaker Bestor Cram will be at PEM for a Q&A following the 10:20 a.m. screening of Camouflage (Contemporary Vietnamese artists overcome obstacles that demand personal courage and artistic determination to document a little known side of the aftermath of America’s war in Vietnam). Cram, a Viet Nam Veteran, has over 25 years experience as director, producer and cinematographer and founded Northern Light Production, located in Allston, MA.

Also on Sunday, March 31 are:

GRIT

GRIT will screen on Sunday, March 31 at CinemaSalem at 2:30 pm.

 

Grit (directed by Western MA resident Cynthia Wade and Sasha Friedlander), the story of one of the world’s largest man-made environmental disasters — a tsunami of boiling mud that sinks 16 Indonesian villages — that transforms a teenage survivor into a political activist; and

Balian (The Healer) (directed by Boston- based Dan McGuire), which follows the 20-year rise and fall of Mangku Pogog, a “Balian” or traditional Indonesian healer who is equal parts trickster, scoundrel and saint. His “discovery” by Western tourists leads to serious consequences and McGuire returns 20 years later to learn about his fate. Both films show at CinemaSalem with filmmakers present for post-screening Q&A sessions.

 

Balian

BALIAN (THE HEALER) will screen on Sunday, March 31 at CinemaSalem at 5 pm.

 

 

Finally, SFF veterans will be relieved to know nine new Salem Sketches will be unveiled this year. The mini docs showcase portraits of the local scene with one Sketch screened before each feature film. And, new this year, there are five Shorts Blocks—and they are all free.

 

 

A complete lineup of films, listings of all events, and information on how to buy tickets is available at salemfilmfest.com.

Temple Emanu-El unveils stunning stained glass ark at rededication

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Temple Emanu-El congregants celebrate the installation of the synagogue’s new ark. Photo by Stuart Garfield

by Shelley A. Sackett

MARBLEHEAD – When Rabbi David J. Meyer stood on the bimah facing a packed congregation at the Temple Emanu-El rededication ceremony on March 8, he felt like a moment of fulfillment was being shared with the entire North Shore Jewish community.

The lights came up in the newly renovated sanctuary, with its magnificent stained glass ark, and he could hear gasps of amazement. “I felt enormous gratitude for the blessings filling the moment,” he said.

Ingrid Pichler, the Swamp­scott artist who created the ark, was among the attendees at the Shabbat service who witnessed the Torahs being placed in their new illuminated home.

“It’s a very different feeling when the work is installed as it takes on its own identity, the one it was created for, in the place it was always meant to be,” said Pichler. “After months in my studio, the work has now gone home.”

Ingrid Pichler, the Swampscott artist who created the ark, working with stained glass in her studio. Photo courtesy of Ingrid Pichler

The renovation was a long road that started with discussions five years ago, as both the need and desire to update the sanctuary, social spaces, offices, and learning spaces became ever more compelling. The $1.8 million project, which addressed accessibility and inclusion, functionality, security, and the environment, also stressed artistic considerations, which is immediately evident upon entering the remodeled sanctuary.

During discussions of how to best capture the essence of their community, Temple Emanu-El members kept coming back to the idea of water. “It is fitting, especially for our synagogue which stands only steps from the Atlantic Ocean, that water is used as a visual theme for our sanctuary of worship,” Rabbi Meyer said in a statement last year.

Pichler was first contacted by Francine Goldstein, Renovation Committee chairwoman, who asked if she would be interested in submitting a proposal for the ark as part of a national search for artists. The only direction she received was that the theme was water and she had one week to come up with something.

There were no initial guidelines regarding color, shape, or content, which left it up to the artists to find their own interpretations and relationships with the theme of water and the architectural space. The committee also considered using mosaic, metal, and wood.

Pichler presented her preliminary designs, and Goldstein recalled overwhelming committee support for using glass as the medium to express the theme. “The flowiness of the glass really speaks to the whole idea of water without being too blatant,” she said.

Pichler received the green light to meet with the design team and submitted her first designs in February 2018. After a lengthy period of discussion and tweaking, the final design was approved last May.

A view of the ark from the aisle. Photo by Stuart Garfield

“Any site-specific installation has to successfully integrate the architectural space; honor the location, purpose, and light of that space and, in this case, be the focal point,” Pichler said.

Pichler admitted she was a bit apprehensive at first, since this was her first Jewish house of worship (she has created work for churches in the United Kingdom and Marblehead). However, as a visual artist working in glass, she reminded herself that she communicates through more than just words.

“The language of color, shape, texture, line, and light is universal,” she said.

Originally from northern Italy, Pichler has been working in architectural glass for almost 30 years. She cut, shaped, assembled, and fired each one of the several thousand pieces of glass for the ark.

“I consider each piece of glass as a brush stroke that makes up the final painting, and therefore I work solo,” she said. “Water for a sacred space demands a very different interpretation than water for a luxury spa or swimming pool, and my thoughts when designing and fabricating are matched accordingly.”

The stunning result evokes the ocean, waves, and flow of the tides with its hues of blues and refraction of light, accomplishing much more than just its functional goal.

“In the Torah, water is the primordial substance from which life emerged at the will of God,” said Rabbi Meyer.

Salem Film Fest screens ‘The Accountant of Auschwitz’

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Salem Film Fest screens ‘The Accountant of Auschwitz’

Survivor Bill Glied in Auschwitz

by Shelley A. Sackett

In 2015, a frail 93-year-old former Nazi officer made international headlines when he went on trial in Germany, charged with complicity in the murder of 300,000 Jews at Auschwitz.

Nicknamed “The Accountant of Auschwitz,” Oskar Gröning was hardly the architect of the Holocaust. He was a 21-year-old soldier, following orders to collect and account for the items taken from Jewish prisoners as they were herded off trains and ultimately sent to their deaths.

Nonetheless, he was there, witnessing and abetting a system where 1.1 million people died at the notorious Nazi camp.

On the stand over 70 years later, with some who had survived Auschwitz in the courtroom as witnesses and testifiers, Gröning unemotionally described what he saw and what he did. He wanted to speak out as a witness because more than anything, he said, he wanted to debunk Holocaust deniers. On the other hand, as a participant, his hands were hardly clean. The issues raised were murky ethically and morally, asking questions with no clear answers.

Gröning was found guilty but died in March 2018, before he could begin the four-year prison sentence he was given.

If this sounds like it would make a great documentary film, director Matthew Shoychet and producer Ricki Gurwitz agreed. They teamed up to make the award-winning “The Accountant of Auschwitz,” which will screen at Peabody’s Black Box Theater (located inside the ArcWorks Community Art Center, 22 Foster St., Peabody) on Saturday, March 30, as part of the Salem Film Fest.

Shoychet, who grew up in a “pretty secular household” in Toronto, always was interested in Jewish subjects, but felt a special link through film. His grandfather showed him the 1959 film, “The Diary of Anne Frank,” which opened his 7-year-old eyes to the Holocaust.

Years later, “Schindler’s List” had a strong effect on him, Shoychet said. Although he is not a grandchild of survivors, many of his cousins and relatives were murdered. “I knew, as a Jew, I was connected,” he said.

Gurwitz attended Jewish day school in Toronto in a family she describes as a mix of conservative and reform. A “history nerd,” she was always interested in how her Jewish community has persevered through the centuries in the face of constant persecution.

Their paths crossed and they became friends in 2013 during an International March of the Living, the annual educational program that brings individuals from around the world to Poland and Israel to study the history of the Holocaust and to examine the roots of prejudice, intolerance, and hatred.

Shoychet took the trip again in 2015, where he met and befriended Holocaust survivor Bill Glied, who had to leave early to testify at the trial of another former Nazi in Germany.

“I didn’t know Nazi trials were even possible anymore,” Shoychet said.

By coincidence, Gurwitz, who was working as a TV producer, called Shoychet two months later to tell him about a story she just covered: the German trial of the former “Accountant of Auschwitz.” The two combined forces, created a pitch, and started filming as soon as they could.

They faced many challenges. German law does not allow filming inside courtrooms, so animations and graphics fill in the blanks. But the biggest challenge to Shoychet was for people not to dismiss the film as “just another Holocaust film.” His unique storytelling resists a chronological approach, instead interweaving side stories that take history and relate it to Gröning’s trial.

“There is a feeling of a race against time. Soon, Nazi perpetrators and Holocaust survivors will be gone,” Shoychet said.

For Gurwitz, making the film was a “life-altering experience. Witnessing a former SS officer testify in court is something I will never forget,” she said. “I want to challenge preconceived beliefs about justice, punishment, and culpability. There are two sides here, and I could argue both of them. I want audiences to explore the complexities surrounding this trial and ask questions about how we punish war crimes, who is responsible, and what is the statute of limitations.”

Salem Film Fest 2019 runs from Friday, March 29 to April 4. For more information or to buy tickets, visit salemfilmfest.com.

Daughter offers glimpse inside private world of Leonard Bernstein

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Jamie Bernstein will speak about her famous father at Temple Emanu-El in Marblehead.

by Shelley A. Sackett

Leonard Bernstein, whose global 100th birthday celebration has invigorated his reputation as one of the great musicians of modern times, was best known as a composer, conductor, pianist, teacher, and humanitarian. With the publication of her memoir, “Famous Father Girl: A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein,” oldest daughter Jamie Bernstein shifts the spotlight to his least examined – but to her – most important role: that of father.

Jamie, a writer, broadcaster, filmmaker, and concert narrator, paints a detailed portrait of a complicated and sometimes troubled man, plumbing the emotional complexities of her childhood and inviting the reader into her family’s private world of celebrity, culture, and occasional turmoil.

North Shore Leonard Bernstein fans will have a chance to hear Jamie speak about her book and answer questions at 7 p.m. on Sunday, April 7, at the newly renovated Temple Emanu-El, 393 Atlantic Ave. in Marblehead. In addition, there will be a screening of the documentary, “Leonard Bernstein, Larger Than Life,” followed by a dessert reception. The event is co-sponsored by the Jewish Community Center North Shore Jewish Book Month and International Film Festival committees.

One of Jamie’s goals in writing her memoir was “to answer the frequently asked question: WHAT WAS IT LIKE?!” she told the Journal by email. “What was it like growing up in that family, with that father? The short answer: not boring. The longer answer: read my book!”

In her 400-page memoir, chockfull of spicy details and intimate family pictures, Jamie paints an eyewitness portrait of the 1960s and 1970s she lived. “I grew up in amazing times. They were turbulent and shifting. It was a particularly intense time to be a young woman,” she said. She also dishes about the extraordinary circle of characters that populated the Bernsteins’ lives, including: the Kennedys, Mike Nichols, John Lennon, Richard Avedon, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins, and Lauren Bacall.

Her two siblings, Nina Bernstein Simmons and Alexander Bernstein, also have been involved in preserving their father’s legacy. Jamie showed them every draft of her memoir. “All along, I told them that they had complete veto power. They were amazingly supportive; I don’t think they ever asked me to take anything out,” she said.

Their mother, Chilean pianist and actress Felicia Montealegre, raised her three children to be bilingual, which serves Jamie well when she narrates concerts in Spanish in locations such as Madrid and Caracas. “Our mother was not only beautiful, elegant, and talented, she was also the stabilizing force for our family in general and [for] our dad in particular,” she said.

Giving new meaning to the phrase, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Jamie communicates her own love affair with classical music through her roles as speaker and concert narrator. She writes and performs the script for “The Bernstein Beat,” a popular and successful program of family concerts about her father’s music modeled after his own groundbreaking “Young People’s Concerts.”

Leonard Bernstein conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood in 1970. Photo by Heinz Weissenstein, Whitestone Photo, BSO Archives

“I’m not exactly channeling him [her father], since I’m only doing half of his job – the writing and talking part,” Jamie said. “But I do feel a similar urge to reach out and communicate to my audiences. I love sharing the stuff I’m excited about.”

While on her book promotion tour (“a considerable amount of schlep”), she has talked to many people who experienced her father’s mystique, either through concerts at Tanglewood and the New York Philharmonic or through recordings, TV, and Broadway productions. “It has been incredibly touching. The attendees are curious and attentive and quite emotional. And so many of them have stories!” she said.

Izzi Abrams, president of the JCC in Marblehead, is among those with stories. Her family had an indirect relationship with the Bernsteins through her uncle, Rabbi Israel Kazis of Congregation Mishkan Tefila in Brookline, where the Bernsteins were members when Leonard was a boy. Abrams also taught a course on Bernstein last fall and winter. “I’ve been excited ever since I heard a couple of summers ago that Tanglewood was going to celebrate Bernstein’s 100th birthday in 2018,” she said.

With over 5,000 events worldwide, Jamie acknowledges that her book is just a small piece of the LB Centennial celebration that she and her siblings hope will remind those who lived in their father’s era of the enormous legacy he left behind.

“We also hope that young people will discover Leonard Bernstein, and be excited to know more about him, his music, and his music-making,” she said.

For information or to buy tickets to the April 7 event, visit jccns.org or call 781-631-8330.

 

Swampscott scientist lands top MIT award

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On Thursday, March 21, Dr. Mercedes Balcells-Camp’s colleagues will recognize what they describe as her extraordinary contribution when she receives the MIT Excellence Award for Advancing Inclusion and Global Perspectives.

By Shelley A. Sackett

 

SWAMPSCOTT — As the oldest of six children growing up in an apartment in bustling Barcelona, Spain, Dr. Mercedes Balcells-Camps shared a room with her three sisters and took public transportation or walked to school. From grades 1 through 12, she attended La Vall School, a girls-only charter school that met from 9am to 5pm and required students to wear a brown uniform.

 

On the first day of seventh grade, Dr. Balcells-Camps’ life changed forever when her science teacher, Mrs. Ustariz, told the class that their textbooks were only the tip of the iceberg and that there were more things waiting to be discovered than were written in those books. “I became a scientist that day. I wanted to discover the unknown in nature,” she said from the Swampscott home she shares with her husband and two daughters.

 

And become a scientist she did, earning a BS in chemical engineering, an MS in organic chemistry and a Ph.D. in macromolecular chemistry before moving to the US for a post-doctoral fellowship at MIT. “I was supposed to be in Cambridge for three years and then return to Spain,” she said. Instead, she became good friends with a colleague who introduced her to both her husband and to Swampscott.

 

Today, some two decades later, Dr. Balcells-Camps is Principal Research Scientist at MIT’s IMES (Institute for Medical Engineering & Science), a hub that brings together the community of students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty who work at the convergence of engineering, science and translational medicine. Through dual appointments at MIT and her alma mater, Institut Quimic de Sarrià in Barcelona, she has promoted innovative research and educational exchanges between both institutions and countries.

 

As a result of this collaboration, she created the International MIT-Spain Program and co-founded the Spanish start-up Regenear. She also chairs the MIT IDEA2 Global program, which provides mentoring and connections to biomedical innovators around the world to develop and realize their project ideas. “Science doesn’t work in isolation. It requires multidisciplinary and international approaches,” she noted.

 

On Thursday, March 21, Dr. Balcells-Camps’ colleagues will recognize her extraordinary contribution when she receives the MIT Excellence Award for Advancing Inclusion and Global Perspectives. The award is presented in six categories and represents the highest honor presented to MIT staff.

 

Since the day she found out she won the award, Dr. Balcells-Camps has been thanking her family, extended family and collaborators inside and outside the US. “You cannot build a bridge if you don’t have help in each side,” she said. Professionally, she hopes to harness the visibility of the award to continue growing programs to tackle global health problems through culturally sensitive patient-centric approaches. “What works here in the US may not work in a rural place like Latin America,” she explained.

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Dr. Mercedes Balcells-Camps, far left, and her daughters Swampscott High School freshman Isabel and Swampscott seventh grader Sofia.

 

She credits her daughters, Isabel and Sofia, with the resiliency and sense of humor to embrace their mom’s work, which has had them cross the Atlantic over 50 times and host hundreds of exchanges students and faculty. “I’m glad I make them proud because there have been sacrifices along the way,” she said.

 

While the excellent public schools, proximity to family and ocean views lured her to Swampscott, the more serious opportunity to fight disease and discover new tools that physicians could use to solve unmet clinical needs is what brought her to MIT. “MIT is the paradise of science, engineering and innovation and full of extremely motivated students and faculty. Early in my career, it became a dream of mine to come here,” she said.

 

Working with physicians and clinicians and industry partners to accelerate the path of new technologies, Dr. Balcells-Camps’ work has focused on building artificial organs and tissues made of biodegradable materials and human cells from donors. “I hope that in the future, in the same fashion we replace a tire on our car, we can replace the diseased artery when we have a stroke because of a blocked artery,” she said.

 

Currently, her research focus is development of a new model to understand the blood-brain barrier. This work is important for treatments of brain disorders, certain diseases (ALS, Alzheimer’s and MS) and drug abuse, such as opioid addiction.

 

Remembering the importance of her seventh grade teacher’s encouraging words, she offers this advice to young people thinking about pursuing a career in science.

 

“GO FOR IT! It is humbling and hard work but it is amazing what you can do when you unravel ‘science mysteries.’ The impact on society is tremendous. We need young talent in science and engineering if we want to understand how cells work and defeat disease, find better solutions to generate clean energy or create new smart materials for a better daily life.”