Tickets Now On Sale for the Jewish Film Festival

Tickets are now on sale for the Westchester Jewish Film Festival at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville. The festival runs from March 19 through April 10 and features a diverse array of 39 programs celebrating the grand sweep of the Jewish experience. This year's expanded lineup of dramas and documentaries includes magic, Israeli history, family secrets, and the most joyous person you'll ever meet (who happens to be the oldest living Holocaust survivor). This promises to be an extraordinary three weeks.

Among the special events this year are a day-long Celebration of Pioneering Women on Sunday, March 30, with the centerpiece program The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life (which just won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short) followed by a live piano concert of Chopin's études. This day also features three films from Israel and ends with the Emmy-winning comedian Judy Gold leading a Q&A with the audience following a screening of When Jews Were Funny. Other festival highlights include Quality Balls:The David Steinberg Story with David Steinberg, A Tribute to Arik Einstein, an evening of music, film clips and conversation, and a screening of Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did For Love followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Dori Berinstein, Hamlisch's widow Terre Blair Hamlisch, actor/musician Brian d'Arcy James, and Broadway composer Matthew Sklar. .

Tickets sell out quickly, so click here to review the schedule and order your tickets in advance.  Tickets are also available at the box office which opens at noon on weekdays and 11:00 a.m. on weekends.

Here are just a few of the films that will be shown during the exciting month:

The Zigzag Kid: Based on the novel by David Grossman, this is a funny, action-packed film about the fantastical adventures of a spirited 13-year-old boy who longs to be a detective like his father, but can't stay out of trouble. Two days before his bar mitzvah, he wanders into a mysterious world of disguises and fantasies—and with the help of a notorious thief and a famous singer (the incomparable Isabella Rossellini) uncovers a secret that will forever change his life.

The Wonders: A smash hit from celebrated Israeli director Avi Nesher (The Matchmaker). An art-school dropout is embroiled in a criminal-religious conspiracy when he discovers a kidnapped mys- tery man and modern-day prophet imprisoned in his apartment building. And it gets weirder—and funnier—from there. Some critics have likened The Wonders to a Coen Brothers film. Nesher himself says it's Lewis Carroll meets Carol Reed (The Third Man).

50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. & Mrs. Kraus: In 1939, while the American government blocked Jewish immigration and the Nazi hold on Eastern Europe tightened, Jewish lawyer Gilbert Kraus and his wife, Eleanor, traveled to Nazi Germany from Philadelphia and singlehandedly brought 50 children to safety in the United States. This "heart-wrenching, thrilling, and above all relevant" (New York Times) story, narrated by Alan Alda, is brought to life by private journals and a trove of previously unseen home movies.

The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich: Controversial Austrian Jewish psychoanalyst and scientist Wilhelm Reich, the inventor of the infamous Orgone Box, fled to the United States in 1939, where he devoted himself to research while raising suspicions during the paranoid 1950s. This stunning biopic stars the incomparable Klaus Maria Brandauer (Mephisto, Out of Africa) as Reich, who ultimately faced criminal charges and a prison sentence.

See the entire schedule here.