Cover of TAU's website.

So I just noticed we're on the cover of TAU's website...
TAU is not a religion, but TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY.
Both I and my producer Ravit Markus were graduates. Many gradautes of many colleges leaving with a mixed baggage. There's something of closing a circle when you're on the cover of their homepage.

Slowly, painfully, but surely our Yiddish theater film is getting the word out there...

"Yiddish Theatre" Comes Home
Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Two TAU graduates are bringing their acclaimed documentary film, "Yiddish Theatre: A Love Story" to Manhattan and Los Angeles.

Writer-director Dan Katzir and producer Ravit Markus, both graduates of TAU, will see the long-awaited Manhattan premiere of their 2006 full-length documentary film, "Yiddish Theatre: A Love Story", this November. The film has played in festivals in the U.S. and Canada - and even in Queens, New York - but this will be the first time it is shown in the borough where it was conceived and shot.

Katzir, born in Tel Aviv in 1969, is the recipient of 22 international awards for filmmaking. After graduating magna cum laude from TAU's Department of Film and Television, he earned an MFA from the American Film Institute in Hollywood. Although he was raised in a prominent Israeli family that disdained the Yiddish language, Katzir became enthralled with the subject during a vacation in New York City in 2000 when he met an elderly Holocaust survivor and Yiddish theatre diva, Zypora Spaisman. Zypora’s passion and determination to preserve her art form inspired Katzir to follow her through a bitter cold New York City Hanukah as she struggled to raise funds in an effort to save the oldest running Yiddish Theater in America.

Ravit Markus also graduated from TAU's Department of Film and Television and her collaboration with Katzir is her second project as a producer. She has worked on several projects for television which have aired on Israeli, American and British TV and is now collaborating on her first feature film, "LEAP", with Dan Katzir. Ms. Markus resides in Los Angeles.

"Yiddish Theatre: A Love Story" was made with generous contributions from Jona and Doretta Goldrich and Max and Anna Webb, long-time supporters of American Friends of Tel Aviv University. Mr. Goldrich is a Chairman Emeritus of AFTAU and a member of the AFTAU Board of Directors and the TAU Board of Governors. Mr. Webb is a founder of AFTAU, and serves on the AFTAU Board of Directors and the TAU Board of Governors.

In Manhattan, "Yiddish Theatre: A Love Story", runs from November 21st through November 28th at the Two Boots Pioneer Theatre on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The film also opens in downtown Los Angeles on November 30th at Laemmle's Grand 4-plex Cinema.

Follow the links below for more information on both the Manhattan and Los Angeles releases of the film.

http://twoboots.com/pioneer/jewish.html

http://www.laemmle.com/viewmovie.php?mid=3304

http://www.tauac.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5801