A film by two College of Communications faculty members that tells an unusual story of female co-existence and camaraderie in a part of the world more often associated with conflict will make its State College debut as part of the inaugural Jewish Film Festival at the State Theatre on Sunday, Feb. 24.

“From the Black You Make Color,” written, produced and directed by Judy Maltz, a senior lecturer in the Department of Journalism, and Richie Sherman, an associate professor in the Department of Film-Video and Media Studies, will screen at 7 p.m. Sunday.

The documentary -- which follows a group of women over the course of a school year at Tel Aviv’s oldest beauty academy -- has previously been shown at the Other Israel Film Festival in New York and the Washington Jewish Film Festival.
MOVIE TRAILER

During the film eight women on the margins of Israeli society are thrown together during the course of a school year at Tel Aviv’s oldest beauty academy. Amidst the combs and colorings, these women present a microcosm of modern-day Tel Aviv -- native Israelis and new immigrants, Asians and Africans, among them women struggling with cancer and personal loss. As they learn to create beauty without, each woman undergoes a powerful transformation within.

Eva, the head teacher and driving force at the academy, represents a generation of refugees and survivors who immigrated to Israel after the Holocaust and were often shunned by the native-born Sabras. Nigerian-born Debby, an outstanding student at the academy, embodies the story of tens of thousands of other African refugees who have made their way to Israel in recent years, many of them living in decrepit conditions and under constant threat of deportation.

The experiences of Irena, a cleaning woman who sees in this profession a step up in life, are typical of many other Russian women who immigrated to Israel with great hopes in recent years only to become disillusioned soon after by their limited prospects. Adina, airlifted to Israel as a baby from Addis Ababa, represents a generation of young Ethiopian Jews who successfully acclimated to life in their new homeland but are burdened by the responsibility of caring for parents greatly challenged by modern society.

Vietnamese-born Linh symbolizes the many non-Jewish women who have fallen in love with Israeli men over the years and left their homes and families to follow their hearts only to discover that their adopted homeland was not at all eager to embrace them.

Bubbly Zehava, a grandmother seeking new direction in life after surviving breast cancer, typifies the Sephardi working-class woman in her directness and warmth.

Her teacher and confidante, Anna, an immigrant from Kazakhstan, is also recuperating from breast cancer, but as a newcomer to Israel, lacks the support system Zehava enjoys.

Raheli, a young single mother whose husband was killed in a terror attack in 2004, represents the many Israeli women whose lives have been directly touched by the Middle East conflict but, after being initially embraced by society, are left behind to pick up the pieces on their own.

The stories of all these women come to light as they meet and interact at the beauty academy, a place where women find their strength and empower one another and where beauty becomes a metaphor for much more.

The filmmakers discovered the beauty academy in 2011 and were immediately struck by the diversity of the faces and the variety of different languages being spoken.

“What struck us as extraordinary was that members of diverse ethnic, religious and racial groups -- inclined to stick to their own in the outside world -- seemed to mingle and interact at this place so naturally,” said Maltz. “We learned at the time from the director of the beauty academy that this happened to be the most diverse incoming class ever in its 50-year-history, providing us with an intriguing peg for the story.”

Their storytelling instincts proved correct.

“Right away, we understood that it contained the ingredients for a great visual story. On the one hand, this was a place that represented a microcosm of what modern Israel (and especially modern-day Tel Aviv) had become, and on the other hand, it was a place so radically different from everything else around,” Sherman said. “Our goal is to share an unusual story of coexistence and female camaraderie in a part of the world more often associated with conflict and violence and to show how common interests and passions -- in this case, making others beautiful -- can often trump politics and prejudice.”

Maltz worked for seven years as chief economic correspondent in Jerusalem for Ha’aretz, Israel’s most respected newspaper, and was one of the founding editors of the Ha’aretz English edition, a joint venture with the International Herald Tribune. She has also worked as a reporter for the Jerusalem Post and Reuters and has written extensively for the Financial Times of London and other British, American and Israeli newspapers.

Sherman has shot more than 50 short films and seven independent feature-length films. He previously collaborated with Maltz on the feature-length documentary “No. 4 Street of Our Lady” (2009), which won the Grand Prize for Best Documentary at the Rhode Island International Film Festival, a Silver Telly Award and the CINE Golden Eagle Award. His experimental short films have been in competitive film festivals, including the Kurz International Film Festival in Hamburg, Germany, the Filmstock Film Festival in Luton, England, and the Ann Arbor Film Festival in Michigan.

The inagural Jewish Film Festival at the State Theatre, sponsored by the State College chapter of Hadassah to benefit the Hadassah Medical Organization, begins with “Footnotes” at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24. Tickets are available at the door for the double feature and cost $10.