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Kafka's Last Story: An Evening of Film and Theater!

(This article expired 16.10.2013.)

On Tuesday, October 16, at 7 pm, Washington, DC Jewish Community Center will screen the documentary film Kafka's Last Story as a part of The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival. Cultural Attache Robert Rehak will open the event.

In addition to the film, there will be a theatrical reading of excerpts from Kafka’s Metamorphosis by Theater J’s Delia Taylor.

Franz Kafka’s will requested that “everything I leave behind me…be burned unread.” Part detective story, adventure tale and artistic re-imagining, this film crosses geographic, cultural and chronological boundaries to follow the fate of Kafka’s invaluable writings and papers. (2011, Israel/Germany, documentary, 53 minutes, Hebrew with English subtitles, directed by Sagi Bornstein)

Event Details:
Washington DCJCC
1529 16th Street NW
Washington, DC 20036
Tickets: $11, Discounted $10
Purchase tickets at washingtondcjcc.org/litfest

Co-Sponsors: Embassy of Austria, Embassy of Israel, Embassy of the Czech Republic, German Embassy

Kafka

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

About Kafka's Last Story:
This award-winning Israeli/German documentary chronicles the fascinating story of how Franz Kafka's invaluable life's work ended up becoming the subject of a heated custody battle. Though the influential author of The Trial and The Metamorphosis had instructed his best friend and executor, writer Max Brod, to burn all his writings after his death, Brod instead decided to publish them, leading to Kafka's worldwide posthumous fame. This twisty detective story reveals what's happened to those literary treasures since.

The film follows the manuscripts from their initial journey in Brod’s suitcase from Nazi occupied Europe to Israel, to their current location, gathering dust in a run down Tel Aviv apartment, closely guarded by an unstable, eccentric woman and dozens of cats. The result is a twisted, bizarre detective story, whose irony and absurdity would not have been lost on the great man himself.

Awards:
Special Jury Remi Award – WorldFest Houston, USA, 2012
Special Jury Mention – Moscow International Detective & Research Film Festival, 2012
Best Author's Approach - XVI International TV Festival Bar Montenegro, 2011

About Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival:

The Washington DCJCC presents the annual Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival, October 14-24. The Festival includes 15 events, with celebrated authors and scholars including Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon speaking on his latest book, Telegraph Avenue: A Novel and Nobel Prize-winner Eric Kandel in conversation with The New York Times columnist David Brooks.

The Festival also includes an evening of film and theater focused on Franz Kafka, biographer William Mann on Barbra Streisand’s electrifying rise to fame, a local author fair and a day of storytelling, crafts and fun for children.

About  Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center:

The goals of the Washington DCJCC are to preserve and strengthen Jewish identity, heritage, tradition and values through a wide variety of social, cultural, recreational, and educational programs and services. The Center accomplishes these goals in ways that reflect the unique location and role of the Center in the nation's Capital and the many contributions of the American Jewish community in the United States.