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JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL – 29th Anniversary Opens July 23rd at the Castro Theatre

Director Cathy Randall’s “Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueberger” to open festival

By Seán Martinfield
Sentinel Editor and Publisher
Photo by Lynn Imanaka

Esther Blueburger (Diane Catanzariti ) has thick glasses, parents who don’t understand her, a pet duck, and no friends at her snobby elitist school where her classmates are mostly blond and look identical. Esther and her twin brother are approaching their bar/bat mitzvah, a rite of passage that coincides with her inner turmoil. When befriended by Sunni (Keisha Castle-Hughes), who goes to the local public school, Esther begins to blossom under the affirmation of friendship. Hilariously, she goes undercover and pretends to be a Swedish exchange student at Sunni’s school, hanging out with Sunni and her posse of “bad” girls and spending time with Sunni’s super-hip mom. On the road to greater self-awareness, Esther encounters kissing, sex, class differences, questions of loyalty and an indestructible urge to be herself.

CATHY RANDALL, Director

Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueberger

Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueberger, an import from Australia directed by Cathy Randall, will open the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF) Thursday night, July 23rd, at the Castro Theatre . Celebrating its 29th anniversary, this the world’s oldest and largest Jewish film festival. SFJFF’s mission is to promote awareness and appreciation of the diversity of the Jewish people, provide a dynamic and inclusive forum for exploration of and dialogue about the Jewish experience, and encourage independent filmmakers working with Jewish themes.

Keisha Castle-Hughes, Toni Collete and Danielle Catanzariti

Founded in 1980, SFJFF uses film and media arts to foster cultural understanding. The Festival presents dramatic, documentary, experimental, and animated features and shorts, as well as vigorous panels about Jewish history, culture, and identity. Their mission is to promote awareness and appreciation of the diversity of the Jewish people, provide a dynamic and inclusive forum for exploration of and dialogue about the Jewish experience, and encourage independent filmmakers working with Jewish themes. The programming is rooted in the universality of Jewish themes, while always exploring and expanding the boundaries of what makes a film Jewish.

SFJFF is a key launching pad for Jewish-themed film in the U.S., and many other festivals and film professionals look to SFJFF for new talent and programming ideas. The audiences, whether secular, religious or non-Jewish, proudly refer to the festival as “the Bay Area’s favorite Jewish holiday.”

DANIELLE CATANZARITI

Director Cathy Randall was awarded a fellowship to the Los Angeles Film School’s Feature Development Program to create Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueburger. In 2003, her screenplay received an Australian Writer’s Guild award nomination for best unproduced screenplay, after which she teamed up with producer Miriam Stein. Randall was a writer for Home and Away, an internationally successful soap opera, and an intern at Tony and Ridley Scott’s production company Scott Free. Previous to her work in film, she was a journalist in Sydney.
Join special guest and Opening Night film director Cathy Randall for a Q&A following the Castro screening of Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueburger.

Keisha Castle-Hughes and Danielle Catanzariti

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