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Two Films Two Families Two Cultures Similar... Two films with a common locus and launch point - Palestine, 1948, and events surrounding the founding of Israel. Two stories about families, commencing with the post-World War II circumstances of the family patriarchs. Two films that span generations, roughly sixty years, largely seen through the eyes of the respective adult children, dealing with injustice, pain and anger. And, both films provide ample fuel for discussion of their respective central issues... But Different... Two markedly different approaches to filmmaking and storytelling. Killing Kasztner is a documentary biography that relies upon journalistic investigation and persuasion, revealing the fractious political tension in a newly founded country and one family's struggle to restore their father's honor. Equally important, it asks what actions are acceptable in the course of saving lives. The Time That Remains offers a semi-autobiograhical embellishment of actual events experienced by the Suleiman family of Nazareth. Through Suleiman's eyes we see a culture in stassis, viewed with irony and heartbreak. His unique way of telling a story – combining dark humor and poignant reminiscence – offers an effective and engaging cinematic approach not commonly seen. About The Films... 
From the USA, set in Tel Aviv, Killing Kasztner is a documentary by Gaylen Ross with a mission — to clear the reputation of Rezso Kasztner — the Jew who faced down Adolf Eichmann, saved thousands, and paid with his life. True stories rarely contain a historic mystery, a courtroom drama, a political murder, and a family saga, but all can be found in the contentious story of Rezso Kasztner. In Nazi occupied Hungary, Kasztner dared to negotiate face to face with the architect of the Final Solution, Adolf Eichmann. While the Nazi killing machine was at its peak, Kasztner secured a rescue train for 1684 Jews from Budapest, and bargained for tens of thousands of more lives. It may have been the largest rescue of its kind during the Holocaust, more than were saved by Oscar Schindler, made famous by Steven Spielberg in Schindler's List.
Writing in The New York Times, film critic A. O. Smith aptly summarizes:  "The film, described by its subtitle as the 'chronicle of a present absentee,' is a paradoxical formulation that reveals a lot about the temperament of its director. Mr. Suleiman, an Arab born in the Israeli city Nazareth in 1960 and currently living in Paris, has an exquisite eye for the conflicts and contradictions that bedevil his native city, but he examines them without polemics or sentimentality. The Time That Remains has the scope of a historical epic with none of the expected heaviness. It presents a half-century of tragedy and turmoil as a series of mordant comic vignettes. Imagine a heroic poem boiled down to a flurry of witty epigrams, or a martial statue made of origami, and you will have some idea of the improbable way this filmmaker folds big themes into delicate forms. Mr. Suleiman traffics neither in hatred nor in the romanticism of lost causes. Instead he finds comedy in cruelty, and also the reverse." The religious, political, societal and economic issues embroiling Israelis and Palestinians are complex and long standing. Cincinnati World Cinema does not presume to solve these problems. However, consistent with our mission in providing films that explore the human condition, we strive to offer our community greater understanding of cultures other than our own. In the process of promoting cultural diversity and the art of cinema, films presented by Cincinnati World Cinema touch on a broad spectrum of global and domestic issues. These films are offered in the public interest and do not signify organizational endorsement of any issue, cause or group. 
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