The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival (AJFF) announces the next two entries in its monthly film series, AJFF Selects: Menashe in July and Monkey Business: The Adventures of Curious George’s Creators in August.
Tickets are now on sale for both events. Menashe will screen on Sunday, July 30 at 7:00 PM at United Artists Tara Cinemas 4. Monkey Business will screen on Monday, August 14 at 7:00 PM at SCADShow. Tickets for both are $13 and are available at AJFF.org/menashetix and AJFF.org/monkeybusinesstix.
AJFF Selects brings the same caliber of world-class films from the annual festival to audiences year-round. These special screenings feature outstanding new foreign and independent films, as well as expert speakers and guest filmmakers.
Says AJFF Executive Director Kenny Blank, “Both of these upcoming films represent the diversity and added value that AJFF strives for with its programming. We look forward to the discussions following both Menashe and Monkey Business as there are great conversation to be derived from both films.”
For more information about AJFF, and its expanded, year-round programming in general, and AJFF Selects in particular, visit AJFF.org, or stay connected via on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @ATLJewishFilm.
More about Menashe
Premiering earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim, Menashe is a tender father-son drama rooted in Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox community.
The titular Menashe is a sweet grocery store clerk struggling to make ends meet while parenting his young son, Rieven, following the death of his wife. As the loving but hapless single father tries to maintain custody of his son in their cloistered, tradition-bound culture, pressure builds in for him to either remarry or place his child in the care of his brother-in-law.
Inspired by real events, and performed entirely in Yiddish by a cast of mostly non-professionals, Menashe is the fiction feature debut of veteran documentarian Joshua Z. Weinstein, who adds authenticity to this intimate tale of family and belonging.
Please note: A Q&A will follow directly after the film. Guests TBA.
More about Monkey Business: The Adventures Of Curious George’s Creators
The extraordinary lives of the husband and wife duo who brought the beloved Curious George into being are recounted in Monkey Business: The Curious Adventures Of George’s Creators.
It has been 75 years since the inquisitive monkey first touched the hearts and minds of children around the world, but little is known about his creators, Hans and Margret Rey. German Jews living in Paris during the rise of Nazism, the couple narrowly escaped Hitler’s troops by fleeing on makeshift bicycles they rode across Europe, carrying the yet-to-be-published Curious George manuscript with them. Forced to live in Brazil while they awaited visas to the United States, Hans and Margret eventually sailed into New York harbor to start life anew and create a children’s book classic.
The journey of Hans and Margret Rey is brought vividly to life in this mixed-media documentary, which augments interviews with original hand-drawn animations, all blended with a treasure trove of archival materials from the Rey estate. These include wartime journals, photographs, letters, and, perhaps most interestingly, unpublished Curious George sketches and notes.
Monkey Business: The Curious Adventures Of George’s Creators is narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Sam Waterston.
Please note: Special guests for this screening include the film’s director, Ema Ryan Yamazaki, and Nat Scrimshaw, an illustrator who knew the Reys as a child and now serves as the Executive Director of the Rey Foundation.
