Dancing In Jaffa

Dancing In Jaffa
Mon 7/7 6:30; Tue 7/8 9:00; Wed 7/9 6:30 (The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice Q&A); Thu 7/10 4:00 & 9:00

Dir: Hilla Medalia / 2014 / USA / Arabic/Hebrew with English subtitles / 90 min / DCP

A documentary by Hilla Medalia, Dancing in Jaffa captures how Pierre Dulaine, whose highly-regarded “Dancing Classrooms” project’s work with New York City schoolchildren was documented in the uplifting 2005 film Mad Hot Ballroom and who was the basis for Antonio Banderas’ character in 2006’s Take The Lead, returns to his birth city of Jaffa, Israel. Dulaine, as a 4 year old, and his partially-Palestinian family fled Jaffa in 1948. They return, attempting to bridge the Israeli/Palestinian divide amongst the youth of the city through teaching ballroom dance. Recruiting his pupils from five schools of varying student populations (some all Jewish, some all Palestinian, and one mixed), he faces much greater obstacles than his usual challenges. Underlying it all is the highly-fraught and deeply-rooted conflict in which these children were born and have lived their entire lives. Ronnie Scheib of Variety calls the film “surprising” and “well-crafted”, and Sheri Linden of the Los Angeles Times says it “doesn’t force-feed its message of hope but genuinely earns it.”