Hava Nagila (The Movie)

Santa Fe Jewish Film Festival Presents: It's June! Time for the first film in the Santa Fe Jewish Film Festival's Summer Sneaks: Cool Films for Hot Days summer series!

Hava Nagila (The Movie)
Sunday June 16 @ 4:00 pm
Center for Contemporary Arts (CCA)
1050 Old Pecos Trail Santa Fe NM 87505 

It’s to music what the bagel is to food – musical shorthand for anything Jewish, a happy party tune that you dance to at weddings, bar mitzvahs and even at Major League Baseball games.

Follow this infectious party song on its fascinating journey from the shtetls of Eastern Europe to the cul-de-sacs of America and for the first time, to the canyons and mesas of Santa Fe.

On Sunday June 16th the Santa Fe Jewish Film Festival presents Hava Nagila (The Movie), the first of two
“Summer Sneaks” presented in response to a SOLD OUT regular season.

In its own believe-it-or-not way, Hava Nagila (The Movie) encapsulates the Jewish journey over the past 150 years.

It also reveals the power of one song to express and sustain identity, to transmit lessons across generations and to bridge cultural divides and connect us all on a universal level.

Hava Nagila (The Movie) uses the song as a springboard to explore Jewish history and identity and to spotlight the cross-cultural connections that can only be achieved through music.

 Santa Fe resident and multiple Emmy Award winner, Dyanna Taylor, the film’s cinematographer, will share an up-close Q & A immediately following the film.
Taylor is the granddaughter of noted photographer Dorothea Lange.

A reception featuring light “deli bites” follows the presentation with live klezmer music by Ot Azoy.

Tickets: $15 Advance. $12 Students, $20 Door.
Available from the Santa Fe Jewish Film Festival

You have certainly heard the song ... over and over, again and again and again. But the movie? Not so much?

To help you decide that you really need to attend, here are reviews from the Chicago Tribune, RogerEbert.com, Rotten Tomatoes, and The New York Times.

But perhaps Harry Belafonte puts it best:

When you find a song that says ‘Let us rejoice,’ there’s no better song to leave an evening with.

Hava Nagila tells us who we should be and what we, in a fundamental sense, aspire to be — peoples of love and joy and peace.

And when it comes to singing Hava Nagila, there is Harry Belafonte - and then there is everyone else (for example: Glen Campbell, who also appears in Have Nagila (The Movie).

And when it comes to Harry Belafonte, there is (in Abq Jew's family tradition) the double album Harry Belafonte at Carnegie Hall (recorded April 19 and April 20, 1959) - and then there is every other Harry Belafonte album in the world.

Nu? Abq Jew invites you to join him at CCA Santa Fe on Sunday. Until then - and even though it's only Thursday 6/13 ------

Shabbat Shalom, Albuquerque!
Good Shabbos, New Mexico!