In addition to its schedule of programs in Portland, the Maine Jewish Film Festival comes to Bates for a screening of the film A Matter of Size at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 24, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. Admission is $8/$6.

Facilitated by Associate Professor of French Kirk Read, Assistant Professor of Religion Cynthia Baker, Assistant Professor of African American and American cultural studies Myron Beasley, and Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies John Strong  offer  commentary after the screening.

Directed by Sharon Maymon and Erez Tadmor, A Matter of Size is the absolutely enjoyable tale of Herzl (Itzik Cohen), who always has been overweight. Newly unemployed, living at home with his mother in Ramla, Israel, and banished from his weight-loss program, he finds himself washing dishes in a Japanese restaurant.

There, he is introduced to sumo wrestling. The sport, in which size is an asset, transforms Herzl. With a few large friends, he pursues his newfound passion, which transforms all of their lives and gives them an entirely new perspective.

A Matter of Size is a comedy about a different kind of “coming out” -– that of overweight people who learn to accept themselves and be accepted. Adult themes and sexual content (2009, 90 min.).

In another Bates connection to the festival, college staff photographer Phyllis Graber Jensen shows her short film Mustard Doublebreasted in a MJFF screening at 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 23, at the Nickelodeon Cinemas, 1 Temple St., Portland. The short will also screen at Bates, preceding A Matter of Size.

As the 40th anniversary of his bar mitzvah approaches, a son (Norman Graber, Phyllis’ brother) and his parents (Jay and Anita Graber) recall the experience.

See a trailer of the film.

Learn more about the festival.

Between the Lines, a 2001 award-winning documentary film by Yifat Kedar about Amira Hass, the only Israeli journalist living in the Occupied Territories, will be screened as part of the 2004 Maine Jewish Film Festival at 7 p.m. Sunday, March 14, in the Keck Classroom (G52) of Pettengill Hall. A facilitated discussion with the filmmaker will follow the 58-minute screening (in Hebrew and Arabic, with English subtitles), and the public is invited to attend free of charge.

Interested in reporting the truth, the Jerusalem-born Hass writes for the daily newspaper, Ha’aretz, from her home in Ramallah, 30 miles north of Jerusalem. Filmmaker Yifat Kedar documents the dangerous and often lonely life of this courageous woman.

Hass is the only child of a mother who survived the Holocaust and is an award-winning journalist who has been writing about the Territories since 1991. Originally produced for Israeli television, the film follows her for two years, beginning in 1999, when there was a period of optimism and euphoria in Israel. The worsening political situation affects her daily life as well as the lives of those she covers. Tanks pass her apartment and bombing disturbs her sleep, but she stays to live among the Palestinians and to report from the inside.

“Even if you don’t agree with her, it is hard not to admire the courage of this solitary, brave, and tenacious woman who attempts to share her perspective about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict under dangerous and difficult conditions,” writes Sheera LaBelle in a review essay for the 2004 Maine Jewish Film Festival program.

Bates College screens a wide variety of award-winning films with human and animal rights themes, some with visits by filmmakers, during the month of March.

Award-winning filmmaker Stephanie Black will screen and discuss her film Life and Debt at 4:15 p.m., Thursday, March 10, in the Keck Classroom (G52), Pettengill Hall. The public is welcome to attend free of charge.

Using excerpts from the award-winning non-fiction book A Small Place, a survey of colonialism by Jamaica Kincaid, Life and Debt is a tapestry of sequences focusing on individual Jamaicans whose strategies for survival and conditions of day-to-day existence are determined by the economic agendas of the United States and other foreign powers. The film combines traditional documentary with a stylized narrative framework. “The movie offers the clearest analysis of globalization and its negative effects that I have ever seen on a movie or television screen” writes New York Times critic Stephen Holden.

“My motivation as a filmmaker is to use film as an advocacy tool, giving voice to a perspective that can be uniquely represented through film techniques,” Black says. She produced and directed the award-winning feature-length documentary H-2 Worker, which won both Best Documentary and Best Cinematography at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival.

This film is sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and the programs in African American and American cultural studies, with funding from the interdisciplinary, social sciences and humanities divisions.

The college presents the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, already in progress, and continuing until March 13. Sponsored by the Multicultural Center, Amnesty International, Sangai Asia, Filmboard, New World Coalition, Friends of Fair Labor and the Spanish department, the festival is a leading venue for distinguished fiction, documentary and animated films with a distinctive human rights theme. The works help to put a human face on threats to individual freedom and dignity, and celebrate the endurance of the human spirit and intellect.

Listed below are film titles, show times and brief descriptions. All screenings will be held in Room 105, Olin Arts Center, and admission to each film is free.

Wednesday, March 9,
5 p.m.
Juvies, 66 minutes, English
A documentary explores the world of juvenile offenders serving incomprehensibly long prison sentences for crimes they either did not commit or were only marginally involved in.

Thursday, March 10,
5 p.m.
Goodbye Hungaria, 56 minutes, English/Arabic with English subtitles
This film chronicles the lives of a Palestinian refugee and an American volunteer in a Hungarian refugee camp.

Friday, March 11,
7 p.m.
What the Eye Doesn’t See,149 minutes, Spanish with English subtitles
This drama is set during the last days of Alberto Fujimori’s presidency in Peru.

Saturday, March 12,
5 p.m.
Deadline, 90 minutes, English
This documentary explores the legal process that led to the decision to commute the sentences of Illinois’ Death Row inmates.

8 p.m.
Discordia, 66 minutes, English
This documentary explores a student riot sparked by Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned visit to a Montreal campus.

Sunday, March 13,
5 p.m.
Repatriation, 149 minutes, Korean with English subtitles
This film explores the fates of two North Korean prisoners.

8 p.m.
Saints and Sinners, 71 minutes, English
This film follows the challenging journey of a devoutly Catholic gay couple determined to marry in a Catholic church.

For more information about the festival, call 207-786-6135.

Touching on the theme of animal rights, the biology department sponsors its annual Primate Film Festival at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 9, in Room 204 of Carnegie Science Hall, with screenings of two films on baboons and Jane Goodall’s National Geographic presentation My Life with the Chimpanzees. The public is welcome to attend free of charge.

Sponsored by Bates Hillel, the annual Maine Jewish Film Festival will screen Seeds, a documentary by Marjan Safinia, who will introduce the film and lead a post-screening discussion, beginning at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, March 13, in the Keck Classroom (Room G52), Pettengill Hall. Admission is $3.00 for non-Bates students.

The film features Maine’s well-known Seeds of Peace International Camp. Every summer, more than 150 teenagers — Israelis, Palestinians, Indians, Pakistanis, Afghans and Americans — from war-torn countries come together for three extraordinary weeks at the Seeds of Peace International Camp in Otisfield, Maine. Founded by journalist John Wallach after the first bombing of the World Trade Center, the camp exposes the teens to role-playing and trust-building techniques that teach nonviolent communication and respect.

These teens are angry, hurt and confused about the violence in their lives back home, and it is fascinating to watch them move from hurling accusations across a room in week one to crying over having to part from each other at the end of camp.

Safinia is an Iranian-born independent writer and documentary filmmaker, educated in London and in Los Angeles at the USC School of Cinema-Television. Her acclaimed first documentary, But You Speak Such Good English, is a witty and poignant film exploring the first-generation Iranian immigrant experience.

Ruthie and Connie: Every Room in the House, an award-winning documentary film by Deborah Dickson about two lesbians who won a landmark domestic-partner benefits case, will be screened as part of the 2003 Maine Jewish Film Festival at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 8, in Pettngill Hall’s Keck classroom (G52), 4 Andrews Rd. Ruthie Berman and Connie Kurtz will attend and participate in a post-screening discussion. A reception will follow. Admission is $3 and tickets can be purchased at the door.

Brooklyn-born, straight-talking Ruthie Berman and Connie Kurtz are Jewish grandmothers who have been friends for 40 years, and lovers for 25. The funny, painful, life-affirming documentary about their circuitous journey toward each other explores issues of love, lust, family, friendship, change and hard-won acceptance. The pair overcame the obstacles of homophobia to become outspoken advocates for gay rights. They gained national attention when they sued the New York City Board of Education in 1988, and made history five years later when they won domestic-partner benefits for themselves and all New York City employees.

The Boston Globe called the 2002 film “a portrait of two feisty Jewish grandmothers who’ve been in a relationship for 25 years and recount their joys and hardships with inimitable zest.”

Directed by three-time Oscar nominee Dickson, the 56-minute film garnered audience awards for best documentary at the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and at the Los Angeles Outfest, and received the Golden Space Needle Award for best documentary at the Seattle International Film Festival.

The Maine Jewish Film Festival, held this year from March 8 through 13 in Portland, presents films to enrich, educate and entertain a diverse community about the Jewish experience. For more information about the festival, visit here or call 207-831-7495.

The Bates screening is sponsored by Bates Hillel.