Selected Film Festival Screenings Upcoming - Rockport Jewish Film Festival (April 2013) Ohio Premiere - Cleveland's B'nai Jeshurun Slichot Event 2013 Rockland Jewish Film Festival 2013 East Coast Premiere - Jewishfilm.2013 The National Center for Jewish Film's 16th Annual Film Festival Jerusalem Cinematheque Music & Film Festival 2013 North American Premiere - New York Jewish Film Festival 2013 Europe Premiere - Stockholm Jewish Film Festival 2012 World Premiere - Jerusalem International Jewish Film Festival 2012 Director & Cast Kol Nidre marks the on-screen reunion of Leon Liebgold and Lili Liliana, the husband and wife Warsaw actors famous for their roles as the young lovers in 1937's The Dybbuk. Also featured are the comedienne Yetta Zwerling, Motl the Operator star Chaim Tauber, and popular entertainer and cantor Leibele Waldman. Kol Nidre's director, Yiddish cinema pioneer Joseph Seiden, produced 15 Yiddish feature films and many short films between 1931 and 1950, including five films previously restored by NCJF: God, Man and Devil; Love and Sacrifice; The Living Orphan; Motl the Operator; and I Want to Be A Boarder. Photo credit: On the set of Kol Nidre. From director Joseph Seiden's personal papers in the archive of The National Center for Jewish Film   Background Like many shund (low budget, over the top) Yiddish dramas, Kol Nidre is an inventive pastiche of themes and styles, combining family drama and romance with songs and cantorial music. The film opened at the Clinton Theater on New York's Lower East Side on September 7, 1939, two weeks before Yom Kippur (when the prayer Kol Nidre is sung) and one week after the Nazi invasion of Poland.     NCJF Film Restoration Long lost, Kol Nidre has been restored by The National Center for Jewish Film with 490 new English subtitles, using the sole surviving 35mm nitrate print acquired from the family of director Joseph Seiden. Restoration was completed with funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation and a gift from Linda Lipsett & Jules Bernstein, with additional support from the Wellfleet Foundation, Brandeis University, the Massachusetts Cultural Council and The National Center for Jewish Film's Reel Funders. Cast Joseph Sheongold (Moishe Dorfman) Bertha Hart (Sarah, his wife) Lili Liliana (Jenny, their daughter) Menasha Oppenheim (Jack Grossman) Leon Liebgold (Rabbi Joseph Goldstein) David Lederman (Shmelke Shmelkevitz) Yetta Zwerling (Chasie, his wife) Leibele Waldman (Himself) Chaim Tauber (Himself) Zish Kac Joel Feig Choir Credits Director Joseph Seiden Story Ben Gitlitz Photography Don Malkames Music Sholem Secunda Producer Cinema Service Corp (Joseph Seiden) 2012 Restoration © The National Center for Jewish Film Executive Director Sharon Pucker Rivo Associate Director Lisa Rivo Technical Director Rich Pontius Academic Consultant Sylvia Fuks Fried Translators Lillian Leavitt, Solon Beinfeld, Cantor Murray Simon Special Thanks Jim Hoberman Downloads North American Premiere Screening, NYJFF (Jan 2013) Download Promo Postcard (PDF) World Premiere Screening, Jerusalem IFF (July 2012) Download Promo Postcard (PDF)

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Kol Nidre

USA, 1939, 88 minutes, B&W
Yiddish with New English subtitles
Directed by Joseph Seiden

RESTORED
with New English Subtitles by
The National Center for Jewish Film

Public exhibition formats: DCP, Digibeta, BluRay, DVD

 

NEW RELEASE
-NOW AVAILABLE-