Keeping heritage alive in a new land

By Kevin Crust

Jan. 26, 2006 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

THE Skirball Cultural Center and the Mayme A. Clayton Library join forces to present the Black and Yiddish Film Festival, opening tonight with “Cabin in the Sky,” a 1943 Vincente Minnelli musical starring Ethel Waters, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Lena Horne.

Featuring vintage films made between 1929 and 1953, the program -- which runs through Sunday -- continues on Friday with a double feature emphasizing the importance of maintaining one’s heritage against great odds.

Produced in 1948 Germany, the neo-realist “Long Is the Road” is notable as an early film showing the Holocaust from a Jewish perspective. The film follows a Polish man (played by Israel Becker) and his family from their home in Warsaw to Auschwitz and the eventual uncertainty of refugee camps after World War II. Directed by Herbert B. Fredersdorf and Marek Goldstein, the film depicts a horrific journey but ends on a note of hope.

In the 1936 drama “Song of Freedom,” the imposing Paul Robeson plays 19th century London dockworker John Zinga, whose booming voice captures the attention of an opera impresario. Zinga discovers that he is descended from West African royalty and forsakes opera stardom to travel there and save his people from the tyranny of witch doctors. Although the film is often clumsy, its value lies in its progressive view of blacks and Robeson’s commanding performance.

Saturday night features two stories of redemption infused with music. “The Singing Blacksmith” is a 1938 vehicle for Yiddish singing star Moishe Oysher about an indolent young man named Yankel (played as a teen by a young Herschel Bernardi) who is apprenticed to the local smithy by his father. Oysher takes over the role as an adult as Yankel inherits the business when the older blacksmith retires. Yankel would rather sing and dance than work and is torn between the love of tolerant but wan Tamara (Miriam Riselle) and the more seductive offerings of the married Rivke (Florence Weiss). Edgar G. Ulmer of “Detour” fame directed this rousing and earnest musical drama, based on David Pinski’s stage play.

“Hallelujah!” was directed by King Vidor in 1929 and was unusual for its depiction of blacks in a major studio film. Shot as a silent and later dubbed, the movie is a remarkable record of period music ranging from work songs and spirituals to honky-tonk jazz. Daniel L. Haynes stars as Zeke, a sharecropper whose seduction by the enchanting Chick (Nina Mae McKinney) leads to a family tragedy. Zeke rebounds from his fall from grace by becoming a preacher but continues to be obsessed by Chick. The film’s music and portrayal of workaday life transcends some of its stereotypes to be a powerful morality tale.

Oscar entry

In “Buffalo Boy,” Vietnam’s submission to the Academy Awards, writer-director Minh Nguyen-Vo sets his coming-of-age story during the French colonial period. Fifteen-year-old Kim (Le The Lu) embarks on a trek to lead his family’s two starving water buffalo to suitable grazing land during the country’s rainy season, which simultaneously nourishes and rots the environs.

The San Pedro-based filmmaker uses the flooded plains as a shimmering aquatic panorama, creating stunning images for his simple but potent narrative. The screening is a fundraiser for Angels Gate Cultural Center.

Shadowy world

UCLA’s Celebration of Iranian Cinema continues Friday with “Portrait of a Lady Far Away” (2005), a surprisingly stylized drama by actor-turned-director Ali Mosaffa. Homayoun Ershadi plays a despondent architect who receives a phone call from an unknown woman claiming that she’s committing suicide, but instructing him how to get into her apartment. Once there, he finds no trace of the woman, but meets her beautiful, mysterious friend (Leila Hatami), who leads him on a nocturnal tour of Tehran. Shadowy and seductive, the film leads us through a seldom seen underworld. With the short “Reattachment” (2002), directed by Saeed Nouri.

Iranian epic

In collaboration with the UCLA series, REDCAT screens an evening of films directed or co-directed by Iranian women. “Gilaneh” (2005), Rakhshan Bani-Etemad and Mohsen Abdolvahab’s examination of the cost of war through the eyes of one woman, stars Fatemeh Motamed Arya as a widow who travels with her pregnant daughter, Maygol (Baran Kosari), from the country to Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war. The film’s second half takes place 15 years later at the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq as Gilaneh cares for her son, Ishmael (Bahram Radan), a bedridden veteran.

Preceded by Mania Akbari’s “Six Video Arts” (2003-2005), a series of experimental shorts.

Rural rock scene

Jensen Rufe chronicles the vibrant Humboldt County music scene in his energizing documentary “Rural Rock & Roll.” Centered in the towns of Eureka and Arcata -- six hours north of San Francisco -- it’s a hotbed of outsider creativity. Rufe creates an intimate portrait of the dozens of musicians as they work day jobs, promote and support their friends’ bands and create an eclectic mix of sounds, reveling in metal, punk and melodic indie pop.

The film celebrates the scene from its raucous beginnings to a poignant epilogue.

Screenings

Black and Yiddish Film Festival

* “Cabin in the Sky”: 7:30 tonight

* “Long Is the Road” and “Song of Freedom”: 7:30 p.m. Friday

* “The Singing Blacksmith” and “Hallelujah!”: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., L.A.

Info: (310) 440-4500, www.skirball.org

Foreign Films

* “Buffalo Boy”: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Warner Grand Theatre, 478 W. 6th St., San Pedro

Info: (310) 548-7672, www.warnergrand.org