Devorah Coryell loves movies.
The 68-year-old health and wellness consultant and Jewish culture educator calls herself a “passionate filmgoer” and has always made a point of attending the Tucson International Jewish Film Festival, which celebrates its 25th year. Coryell is one of roughly 20 volunteers who picked the movies that will be shown at the annual event.
If it sounds like a pretty sweet gig, it was.
Mostly.
“Every Tuesday morning we’d show up at 9 and watch one or two films,” Coryell said. “It was like ‘Wow, this is fabulous. Tuesday morning we get to be watching movies.’ Most of them are just phenomenal films.”
Then, 50 weeks later came the hard part: whittling down the 60-some movies as well as fundraising and orchestrating the event.
“It’s definitely not one of those committees that you serve on and it’s all fun and games,” Coryell said. “It starts with fun and games — and then gets really labor intensive.”
But Coryell and film festival committee chair Steve Zupcic both agree the hard work is worth it.
“We believe in the power and magic of film, of its power to engage people,” said Zupcic, 66 and a retired university administrator.
This year’s roster of films runs the gamut — they’re from all over the world and touch on a variety of topics. About 3,000 people are expected to attend the festival, according to Lynn Davis, director of arts and culture at the Tucson Jewish Community Center.
The event kicks off Thursday, Jan. 14 at The Loft Cinema, but the rest of the movies will be shown at the JCC. The diverse schedule includes “Advanced Style,” a documentary that follows New Yorkers whose personal style and spirit have guided their approach to aging and “Rock in the Red Zone,” which focuses on the development of an active music scene in a town smack in the middle of a war zone.
Volunteers do dogged research, sifting through publications, tapping community contacts and “relentless Googling,” Zupcic said with a laugh, all to track down the recent releases that will be shown.
“These are films that, by and large, you can see nowhere else,” Zupcic said. “It’s not that they’re low quality at all, it’s just that we dig deep.”
Coryell said the films cover a variety of topics and all are thought-provoking.
“That was always a core question, is this entertaining but entertaining with the undertone of engaging some worthy question?” she said. “None of it is mindless. Every one of these films brings us to a place where we have an opportunity where we can push a little more deeply in some way that life challenges us.”
“Honestly, we have something for everybody,” said Zupcic, who encourages people to read through the film list, find an intriguing movie and — what else? — “Google it! Learn more about it. It may broaden your world.”
