Menemsha Films

"Film as dream, film as music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul." Ingmar Bergman’s powerful statement about film connects with Menemsha’s commitment to this art genre. Menemsha Films is a film distribution company founded in 1998 by Neil Friedman. The typical genre of its films consists of foreign narrative films as well as art house documentaries; or as they prefer “intelligent films for the intelligent film fan.” By setting intelligent film fans as it’s target, Menemsha quickly hit it’s mark; setting a record five films nominated for an Academy Award in five consecutive years in either the Best Foreign Film or Best Documentary categories (Divided We Fall, Son of the Bride, Zelary, Story of the Weeping Camel, and Prisoner of Paradise). Adding to the prestige of it’s Oscar-nominations, is the praise Menemsha’s films have received overseas; receiving various awards from prestigious festivals such as Toronto, Berlin, Karlovy Vary, Venice and Cannes among others.

However, looking beyond the awards one will find the true backbone of this company lies in the subject matter covered by each film. While the bulk of its library consists of Jewish-themed family films (Live and Become, Rashevski’s Tango, Belzec, Saviors in the Night, A Matter of Size etc.), Menemsha is also dedicated to finding top films from countries all around the world, each with a highly universal message packaged in an intriguing, original form. Films such as “A Touch of Spice” from Greece (the most successful film in Greek history), “Cozy Dens” from the Czech Republic (directed by one of the Czech’s most beloved and successful filmmakers, Jan Hrebejk), “Gloomy Sunday” from Germany (recently voted as one of the top 10 films of the decade by Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle), or “Machuca” from Chile (Chile’s 2004 Academy Award Entry For Best Foreign Language Film) will not only reveal something about their own country of origin, but will also provide a new insight into some of the events that may occur in your life.

But if narratives aren’t your thing then its wide variety of documentaries should certainly be something to catch your interest. Ranging in topics from Major League Baseball (The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg) to the plundering of centuries of invaluable art by the Nazis in World War II (The Rape of Europa) to everything in between: “Midnight Movies”, an official selection at Cannes 2005 about the history of classic horror films, “The Ritchie Boys”, which was shortlisted for The Academy Awards in 2005, documents a group of young men who fled Nazi Germany to return as soldiers in U.S. uniforms, and “Inside Hana’s Suitcase”, a youth-driven documentary about a grammar-school class doing some detective work on an old suitcase to educate themselves on The Holocaust.

With a library consisting of 30+ films, and a dedication to growing faster than ever, no matter what your taste might be there is assuredly something here for you. So if the films released in theatres these days just aren’t doing it for you, then it’s time to broaden your horizons and take a step into Menemsha Films’ library.