April 2021 Online Short | Beregovsky 136
From Former JFI Filmmaker in Resident, Yoav Potash
This evocative short film combines a live musical performance by Saul Goodman’s Klezmer Band, filmed during the Covid-19 pandemic, with rare archival footage of prewar Jewish life in Europe. The film takes its name from Moshe Beregovsky, a Jewish ethnomusicologist who traveled throughout Ukraine beginning in the 1920’s to collect and transcribe Jewish folk music. Without Beregovsky’s tireless efforts, hundreds of songs would have been lost forever to the Holocaust, like the lives of many of the people seen in this film.
About the filmmaker: Yoav Potash is an award-winning Bay Area filmmaker best known for the Sundance Film Festival documentary Crime After Crime, a New York Times Critics’ Pick and winner of 25 honors, including a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award, and six audience awards. Yoav also directed the San Francisco IndieFest Jury Prize-winner Food Stamped, which was nationally broadcast on Pivot, Participant Media’s cable/satellite network. A 2019–2020 Jewish Film Institute filmmaker-in-residence, Yoav is currently producing and directing two Holocaust-related documentary projects. Follow him across social media at www.yoavpotash.com or @yoavpotash.
About the band: Saul Goodman’s Klezmer Band performs klezmer music for all manner of concerts and celebrations around the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. The band’s sound brings together modern cosmopolitan sounds with traditional Jewish folk music tracing centuries back from Eastern Europe. www.saulgoodmansklezmerband.com
Featuring: Ilana Sherer — violin
Mike Perlmutter — clarinet
Felisa Simon — upright bass
Aaron Kierbal — drums
View more online monthly shorts at https://jfi.org/watch-online/online-shorts!
