D'une langue à l’autre (2004)

Bookhouse: American Sephardi Federation, Centro Primo Levi, Dan Wyman Books, a cooperative initiative.

The people Nurith Aviv invites to speak in her films speak several languages. Like the filmmaker, they live between languages. They are exiled Jews who became Israeli citizens and had to unlearn their first languages ​​to acquire Hebrew; they are Palestinians who speak between Arabic and Hebrew. They are Deaf people who are forced to vocalize and who, in private, express themselves in sign language, even if it means inventing their sign language – Tiphaine Samoyault notes on this subject that Signer “is a film about the birth of languages”. They are translators of Hebrew, Italian, German, and French, they are translators of Yiddish scattered throughout the world, Jewish or not, who adopt it as a language and give it back voice, accents, breath, and life. And these spoken languages, whether adopted, translated, signed, or imposed, are themselves plural. Even the pronunciation of a letter is plural. Hélène Cixous

Nurith Aviv in conversation with Gil Anidjar, Yemane Demissie, Cynthia Madansky, and Richard Peña

Screening:

D’une langue à l’autre (From Language to Language) [55m] (2004)

The transformation of Hebrew from a language set apart to the common speech of a nation happened within a handful of decades. Yet this triumph came at a cost: the erasure, sometimes violent, of the languages that once lived in its speakers’ minds and mouths. This film gathers a chorus of exiles of language—poets, writers, singers, and actors—who search for new roots as they remain wooed by the echoes of the past.

Allenby, Passage [5m] (2001)

In this oneiric video essay, the director retraces her father’s steps along a passage of Allenby Street in Tel Aviv, where he once bought his photographic equipment. Amid the rustling of chatter rising from the street, the camera turns its gaze to fleeting details, intercepted in their evanescence. As Aviv once described her work as a cinematographer, this film attempts to capture the “beats of time.”

FULL CALENDAR

A four-day tribute to Nurith Aviv presented jointly with Fordham Center for Jewish Studies, Fordham Center for Religion and Culture.

Tuesday, April 22, 7:00 pm

Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Avenue

Traduire (Translating) [1h10m] (2011)

Post-screening conversation: Nurith Aviv with Aviya Kushner, Jacques Lezra, James Redfield

Wednesday, April 23, 7:00 pm

Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Avenue

Langue sacrée, Langue parlée (Sacred Tongue, Spoken Language) (2008) [1h13m]  

Post-screening conversation: Nurith Aviv with Ofer Dynes, Aviya Kushner, Jacques Lezra, and Moulie Vidas

Thursday, April 24, 6:30 pm 

Bookhouse, 15 West 16th Street, 6th floor

Words That Remain [52m]  

Bruly Bouabré’s Alphabet [17m] (2005)

Post-screening conversation: Nurith Aviv in conversation with Gil Anidjar, Yemane Demissie, Cynthia Madansky, James Redfield, and Moulie Vidas

Friday, April 25, 10:00 am

Bookhouse, 15 West 16th Street, 6th floor

D’une langue à l’autre (From Language to Language) [55m] (2004)

Allenby, Passage [5m] (2001)

Post-screening conversation: Nurith Aviv in conversation with Gil Anidjar, Yemane Demissie, Cynthia Madansky, and Richard Peña

TICKETS

Tickets are free for Fordham University’s and Centro Primo Levi’s subscribers who order them before April 17th and pick them up at the door 40 minutes before the beginning of the program. Tickets for the general public will go on sale on April 18th and can be purchased online or, if the screening is not sold out, at the box office on the nights of the event. 

$15 General Admission

$10 Students and Seniors

All programs are held in English and the films are subtitled.