Film Festival Schedule
Films are screened at the J’s Staenberg Family Complex, Arts & Education Building.
Sunday, October 21
Rescheduled: Sunday, October 21, 4pm
The Last Laugh
Staenberg Family Complex/Creve Coeur
Arts & Education Building
Are we allowed to make jokes about the Holocaust? In this outrageously funny and thought-provoking film, director Ferne Pearlstein puts the question about comedy’s ultimate taboo to legends including Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Sarah Silverman, Gilbert Gottfried, Alan Zweibel, Harry Shearer, Jeff Ross, Judy Gold, Susie Essman, Larry Charles, Jake Ehrenreich, and many other critical thinkers, as well as Holocaust survivors themselves.
These interviews are woven together with a vast array of material ranging from “The Producers” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” to clips of comics such as Louis CK, Joan Rivers, and Chris Rock, to newly discovered footage of Jerry Lewis’ never-released film Holocaust comedy “The Day the Clown Cried,” to rare footage of cabarets inside the concentration camps themselves. In so doing, The Last Laugh offers fresh insights into the Holocaust, our own psyches, and what else—9/11, AIDS, racism—is or isn’t off-limits in a society that prizes freedom of speech.
The Last Laugh also disproves the idea that there is nothing left to say about the Holocaust and opens a fresh avenue for approaching this epochal tragedy. Star-studded, provocative and thoroughly entertaining, The Last Laugh dares to ask uncomfortable questions about just how free speech can really be, with unexpected and hilarious results that will leave you both laughing and appreciating the importance of humor even in the face of events that make you want to cry.
The film is free to members of the Jewish Film Society and $10 for guests.
For additional information, contact Zelda Sparks, 314-442-3169.
Sunday, December 2
Sunday, December 2, 2pm
Brave Miss World
Staenberg Family Complex/Creve Coeur
Arts & Education Building
Emmy nominated Brave Miss World is a call for justice and a startlingly honest portrayal of how personal tragedy can be transformed into a global awareness campaign.
The film is free to members of the Jewish Film Society and $10 for guests.
For additional information, contact Zelda Sparks, 314-442-3169.
Presented in partnership with Nishmah, NCJW and Women’s Philanthropy, Jewish Federation of St. Louis
For additional information on becoming a member of the Jewish Film Society, call Zelda Sparks at 314-442-3169. An individual membership is $36, couples $54 and $18 for students.