Des mots qui restent (2022)

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

One day, when we were five or six years old, my friend Ilan told me: “You know Nurith, we are not allowed to pronounce the name of God.” Then he pronounced it anyway and spat on the ground, to ward off bad luck. A little later at school, a secular school in Tel Aviv, when we were taught to read, we were taught at the same time not to pronounce the name of God. We had to say other names instead of this four-letter name, which contains the verb “to be”, in the past, present, and future. According to the Book of Creation, it is with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet that God created the world. It is with these sacred letters, in the sacred language, that for generations young Jewish boys learned to read the Torah and to recite it. But with family or friends, they spoke other languages. And when, later, they wanted to write in these languages, they used the letters they knew, and that their readers could read the Hebrew letters. The philosopher Maimonides, for example, at the end of the 12th century, wrote his Guide for the Perplexed in Arabic, but with Hebrew letters. There have been dozens of languages ​​and dialects written with these letters. Letters that have gradually lost their use and their strength. Today, these languages ​​themselves are dying out. But the resonance of the words, the melodies, the rhythms, and the accents, have left traces that continue to act on those who heard these languages ​​in their childhood.

Nurith Aviv in conversation with Gil Anidjar, Cynthia Madansky, James Redfield, and Moulie Vidas

Screening:

Des mots qui restent (Words That Remain) [52m] (2022)

What is a mother tongue? In this film, six voices call forth memories of the languages that shaped their childhoods: Judaeo-Spanish, Judaeo-Arabic, and Judaeo-Persian—each infused with lexical elements of Hebrew and written in the Hebrew script. Though these languages are fading, their melodies, cadences, and intonations linger, shaping the consciousnesses of those who once heard them in their homes.

L’Alphabet de Bruly Bouabré (Bruly Bouabré’s Alphabet) [17m] (2005)

What remains of a language when no one is left to speak it? In the Ivory Coast, some 600,000 Bété people communicate mainly in a language that is absent from their schools, overshadowed by the dominance of French. In the 1950s, artist Frédéric Bruly Bouabré sought to change that. He devised hundreds of pictograms, drawn from the simple syllables of Bété, to help his people claim the written word. Now in old age, he reflects on his mission: to craft an African script born from the images of daily life, preserving in symbols what speech alone could not.

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, 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.