Shabbos is Movie Night @ ShmoozeDance 2007
SchmoozeDance 2007 will be held in Park City Utah, January 19, 2007. The festival showcases new independent American and international Jewish-subject cinema. We are committed to giving exposure to new, established, and student filmmakers (who weren’t selected for other Park City festivals) during the week when many distributors and producers visit Park City for other festivals and events. Industry professionals and other visitors are invited to attend Schmoozedance.
[…] Our goals are to provide an Oneg Shabbat in Park City during the film festival period each January for congregants, residents, visitors, filmmakers, film industry personnel, film aficionados, members of the press, and everybody else (e.g., a Sundance minyan); [harshalom] to conform to the religious and social goals of Temple Har Shalom; and to promote and highlight the recent undistributed works of new filmmakers.
The event will begin with kabbalat shabbat, followed by kiddush, and then screenings of four films: Unsettled, a feature-length documentary about the disengagement from Gaza; Naturalized, a short about a Russian immigrant in Israel; The Unchosen Ones, Lost in the Holy Land, a short about a woman who comes to Israel on a singles trip; and Chronicles of a Professional Eulogist, an animated short.
I suppose it’s not assur if you buy your tickets in advance and a goy runs the DVD player (or it’s on a timer)… But is it in the Shabbos spirit?
Seems inappropriate and makes me–only marginally shomer shabbos–uncomfortable.
its 100% in the shabbat spirit. It just happens to be a different spirit from the one motivating shabbat table zmirot. Think about it. folks at the other festivals are not doing shabbat at all. if they can find some way to mark shabbat with movies, thats a good thing. Not because shabbat is inherently positive, but because its provides a context for producing meaningful experience.
it is a lovely Shabbos spirit. It the darkness of Park City, in the crisp, bitter cold of a starry night, a few hours after Ski Shul, in which families meet on the slopes for Torah study before Shabbat, a Standing Room Only congregation meets at the local Reform synagogue. A music filled, family filled Oneg Shabbat starts. There is singing, candles, prayers, a real feeling of community, a tight loving spirit. Afterwards is a Kiddush. One year, I met a few rabbis in town for retirement or vacation, I met South American skiers visiting Utah, I met students from SLC and Provo who drove to PC for a Jewish event in this Mormon-filled state.
In years past, the fest premiered US and Israeli films that didnt make it into other fests. Last year, they showed a film by Amos Gitai, naturally controversial in nature, and also a documentary about a young Jewish day school student near Boston who came out as lesbian, and her teachers. One year, they showed John Ritter’s last film, where he played a Jewish husband.
This year, they will show three Israeli films, and even host an fomer Israeli soldier who worked on the Gaza withdrawal as well as two Israeli Gaza settlers and activists.
The fest brings a loving, Jewish spirit to a town during a weekend when indistry leaders and workers from LA, NY and around the world come for fun and back biting and negotiations. It is truly a Shabbat blessing in my opinion, and I was sad to read that you thought it was something that was not kosher.
So,, in my opinion, it is DEFINITELY in the Shabbos spirit, and I look forward to it when I am in PC and Utah during Slamdance