DAVAR is thrilled to revisit this poignant 1988 comedy-drama. Adapted by Harvey Fierstein from his Broadway play of the same name, the film offers an intimate portrayal of fictional female impersonator, Arnold Beckhoff. From the early 1970s to 1980 (pre-AIDs) we follow the heartbreaks of this lovable drag queen, who, as Roger Ebert (1988) writes, … Continue reading Torch Song Trilogy

Driven out by Hitler, persecuted by Stalin, Eddie Rosner, the “Jazzman of the Gulag,” was a top Jewish bandleader in the Weimar Republic who fled to Poland during the thirties and thence to Russia, became Stalin’s favourite, was then imprisoned in a Gulag, released, and finally made it back to Berlin, dying in poverty. Tony … Continue reading The Life and Times of Eddie Rosner

This film is shown in conjunction with UK Jewish Film Festival 2024 NOTE - Tickets must be booked via the UKJFF box office A joyful and nostalgic love letter to the Algiers of his youth, this enchanting autobiographical family drama recreates the vibrant Mediterranean city of the early 60s. With an ex-French Foreign Legion father … Continue reading Once Upon a Time in Algeria

  This film is shown in conjunction with UK Jewish Film Festival 2024 NOTE – Tickets must be booked via the UKJFF box office Ownership, history and morality are the poignant themes tackled here in relation to the restitution of art looted by the Nazis and the ongoing crises in the art world. Amongst a number … Continue reading The Spoils

This talk will trace the extraordinary life and times of Lithuanian born Alexander Levin, through his 1954 autobiography as a pioneering Hebrew educator across Eastern Europe at the turn of last century and through the inter-war years. Mervyn will share Alexander’s eyewitness experiences, both of severe discrimination and the delights of now vanished Jewish life … Continue reading Memoirs of a Pioneering Hebrew Educator: a vanished European heritage and new frontiers in Africa

One Life tells the real-life story of the British humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton’s rescue of over 600 predominantly Jewish children from pre-WW2 Nazi-occupation in Czechoslovakia. Starring Anthony Hopkins as Winton, the narrative shifts from the 79-year-old’s comfortable retirement to his haunting reminiscence of the mission.  Hailed as the ‘British Schindler,’ Winton’s crucial role in history is … Continue reading One Life

Another film based on a true story, Kidnapped is a historical drama that uncovers an uncomfortable tale of antisemitism and child abuse at the hands of the Catholic church. It is Bologna,1858, when the six-year-old Jewish boy, Edgardo Mortara, is taken from his family by the Papal States and raised as a Catholic.  What follows is the … Continue reading Kidnapped

  Tracing their legacies back to the golden age of circus, this talk charts the successes of the Jewish circus families, their tours and their specialty acts, painting a vivid picture of their legacies. Together we will discover their fates, as people and as businesses, throughout the years of the Nazi regime. Telling these stories … Continue reading Circus Jews under National Socialism

Directed by Ken Hughes, who was ‘fascinated by Jews and Jewish culture,’ The Small World of Sammy Lee ‘is one of the few overt attempts to put British Jewish life on screen’ (Andrew Pulver, The Guardian, 2016).  Adapted from an original BBC television play, this gritty black and white crime film follows hustler and strip club compere, … Continue reading The Small World of Sammy Lee