HAMBURG -- BEN BECKER'S TOUR DE FORCE AS AN EXTRAORDINARY"ORDINARY JEW" by Alex Deleon, September 29, 2005 for <www.filmfestivals.com>"Just an Ordinary Jew" ('Ein Ganz Gewohnlicher Jude') directedby Oliver Hirschbiegel of the Berlin Bunker drama "The Downfall", andstarring Ben Becker in a mesmerizing 89 minute screen  monologue, turned outto be the capstone of the Hamburg film festival.  Based on a recent bookby Swiss author Charles Lewinsky, ...

"ALL SCREENS FEST" CINEMA TOUT ECRAN IN GENEVA BROADENS THE VIEW The 12th edition of the Cinéma Tout-Ecran Film and Television Festival took place in Geneva from October 3O to November 5, 2OO6. I must admit that never having been much of a TV fan and having to my credit (or discredit) an almost encyclopedic ignorance of TV sitcoms and famous long-running series (I never saw a single installment of "Dallas"), it was with a certain trepidation that I signed up for Tout-Ecran, wondering whether s...

"Just an Ordinary Jew" ('Ein Ganz Gewohnlicher Jude') directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel of the Berlin Bunker drama "The Downfall", and starring Ben Becker in a mesmerizing 89 minute screen monologue, turned out to be the capstone of the Hamburg film festival. Based on a recent book by Swiss author Charles Lewinsky, this heady piece of work adresses itself to the thorny issue of what it means to be a Jew in contemporary Germany. Emanuel Goldfarb, a German journalist of Jewish heritage, but not a...