FailedMessiah.com

New Jerusalem Theater Complex To Be Closed On Shabbat After Secret Backroom Deal Forced By Haredim

A source in Jerusalem’s city government said Cinema City’s owners were pressured by the city to tell the High Court Cinema City would close on Shabbat of its own volition. In return, it was offered backroom financial inducements by the city – and likely backed by the Finance Ministry, as well. The source noted the ongoing security situation in the capital was hurting Cinema City financially, and its owners were told the municipality and the Finance Ministry would find ways to help Cinema City financially in exchange for it agreeing to close on Shabbat. But those inducements, that pressure, and the resulting deal were all made behind closed doors and with no transparency.

El Al Flight Kills PG-13 Movie In Order To "Not Annoy" Haredim

El Al has yet again acquiesced to haredi modesty demands and penalized non-haredi passengers.

Former Porn Queen Takes To Twitter To Defend Israel

And not only that, Jenna Jameson, the former "Queen of Porn," is converting to Judaism.

Does She Really Want Tea?

A great new video short explains what consent is in a way pretty much everyone can understand.

New Short Film On Hasidim

A 23-year-old hasidic Jew struggles to come to terms with the tension of staying true to tradition, and life as a young man in modern Britain, in Billy Lumby's short film Samuel-613. Set in east London, Shmilu (played by Theo Barklem-Biggs) is already divorced, grasping to control his coming-of-age and a creeping curiosity for life outside of his insular community. Sneaking in porn magazines and chatting on Facebook to non-Jewish girls leads to a row with his family, and Shmilu finds his freedom thrust into his hands. All of life's finest vices are ripe for the picking – booze and dating crumble under the weight of his lack of knowledge about topics such as Tupac and the 'outside' world that Shmilu is so new to, and he finds himself spiraling into the depths of excess with no sign of control.

Felix And Meira

Ex-hasid Luzer Twersky's new film, Felix and Meira, opens tonight in New York City. Here's the trailer.

Video: A Holocaust Survivor Returns To Poland With Filmmaker Menachem Daum

“Hatred doesn’t always have to be passed on from generation to generation,” says New York filmmaker Menachem Daum. “Perhaps no one is more qualified to set such an example than Poles and Jews.”

Baruch Dayan HaEmet: Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles.

Video: New Award-Winning Film On Agunah Crisis Opens Today

Here's the film's video trailer.

Director Of Film That Smears A President And Excises Jews Now Says Film Is Accurate History

People who are upset by her smear of President Lyndon Johnson, Ava DuVernay says, should be happy that people are now talking about him with regard to his civil rights legacy and not Viet Nam. And what about the rabbis who marched with Martin Luther King, Junior? Rabbis DuVernay wrote out of history? Silence.

Jewish Actress Who Won First Ever Back-To-Back Oscars Dies – At 104

Luise Rainer, a Hollywood star few remember today, fled Nazi Germany for Hollywood and soared to fame in the 1930s as the first star to win back-to-back Oscars. She just died in London at the ripe old age of 104. Rainer left Hollywood after fighting with Louis B. Mayer and other studio heads and lived the rest of her long, interesting lfe in London and Geneva, where she studied medicine, aided orphaned refugees of the Spanish Civil War, appeared at war bond rallies in the United States and entertained Allied troops in North Africa and Italy during WW2. After that she painted and wrote – and also rather frequently climbed mountains for the sport of it. But her exchange with the notoriously nasty Louis B. Mayer, posted below, is perhaps the classic takedown of the studio chief and a surprising nod to religion.

Duvid: A Short Film

Duvid Stern has never heard of Harry Potter. In fact, he doesn’t even go online. A Satmar hasid, his parents have told him to find a wife by Purim, or they will find one. But Duvid goes wild.

Rabbi Who Equated Child Sex Abuse To Having Diarrhea Makes New Film On The Kabbalistic Take On Sexual Intimacy

Rabbi Manis Friedman, the Chabad rabbi and shaliach (emissary) who called for collective punishment and genocide against Israel's enemies (the Moment Magazine incident) and compared being sexually abused or raped as a child to having a case of diarrhea, is reportedly the co-producer of a new film – on the kabbalah’s take on sexual intimacy.

Israeli Film About An Agunah And Israel’s Oppressive Rabbinical Courts Nominated For Golden Globe Award

"Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem" has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award.

Free Tickets To Israeli Film's US Premier In Manhattan

The Other Israel Film Festival is being held this week in Manhattan, and FailedMessiah.com has a pair of tickets to the US premier run of an Israeli film to give away. Here's how you can win.

Contest Extended For Free DVD Of Acclaimed Director's New Film

Acclaimed documentarian Claude Lanzmann's new Holocaust film Last of the Unjust is out on DVD – which lists for $39.98 – and you might win a free copy. Here's how:

New Film Co-Starring Ex-Hasid Set To Premiere

Ex-hasid Luzer Twersky's new film, "Felix and Meira," will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. It also stars Hadas Yaron from "Fill The Void."

Prominent Lakewood Haredi Rabbis Call For A Ban On Haredi Children's Video

Prominent Lakewood haredi rabbis are calling for a ban on Megillas Lester, a new haredi children's video that has been well-received by haredim, because the video supposedly "profanes and embarrasses the holy." Update 4:18 pm CDT – Artscroll has pulled the video from its website. Update 3-12-2014 – Artscroll resumed selling the video.

Banned In Beirut, Yours Free – If You Win

Lebanon’s Interior Ministry banned the award-winning film The Attack last spring when it found out part of it was filmed in Israel using Israeli actors. Now you have a chance to get a copy of the film - for free.

God's Neighbors

The Israeli film God's Neighbors is showing tonight at 8:00 pm at the Israel Film Center Festival at the Manhattan JCC, and FailedMessiah.com is cosponsoring the screening – so if can, go and see it.

The Contest Is Still On: Win Free Tickets To NYC's Israel Film Festival

Answer these three questions correctly and you have a chance to win a pair of tickets to a great Israeli film about…haredim.

Wendy Runge Reports To Prison

The Minnesota haredi woman caught in the Iowa Film Office scandal reported to an Iowa state prison today to begin serving a sentence that could last as long as 10 years.

Trailer: The Hen That Crows

A brief, difficult (coerced) marriage, a long custody battle and being ostracized by her entire family didn't stop Fraidy Reiss from getting on with her life – outside the haredi community.

Win A Free DVD Of The Well Reviewed Film, Romeo And Juliet In Yiddish

You have until Saturday night at 11:59 pm CST to correctly answer the following question. One winner will be chosen from the correct answers on Sunday.

Johnny Physical Lives

"Thanks to your support, JOHNNY PHYSICAL LIVES, a film about how rock n' roll transformed my late brother's experience of leukemia, just finished a successful Kickstarter campaign. I'm proud to announce that the film is in the running for IndieWire's Project of the Month (after winning the Project of the Week nomination). The winner of this contest receives a chance at amazing exposure through a consultation with the Tribeca Film Institute."

Wendy Runge Loses Appeal, Will Serve 10 Year Sentence

Minnesota filmmaker Wendy Weiner Runge’s appeal of her 10-year prison sentence was denied by an Iowa appeals court last week. Runge claimed that the trial judge improperly considered comments she made during her trial on her blog  attacking prosecutors and the judge. Runge also claimed that the charges against her were filed as result of antisemitism.

Video: The Rabbi's Daughter

Rabbis daughters, no longer Orthodox.

Video Trailer: The Flat

The Israel Academy Award winner for best documentary opens in the US Friday (including same day as theaters on demand cable and satellite).

'Filmmaker' Who Sparked Middle East Violence Defiant

This is a political movie," said [Sam] Bacile. "The U.S. lost a lot of money and a lot of people in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we're fighting with ideas." Bacile, a California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew [but who is not – please see below], said he believes the movie will help his native land by exposing Islam's flaws to the world. "Islam is a cancer, period," he said repeatedly, his solemn voice thickly accented.

Video: Rabbi Burger

It's offensive. It's funny. It's not my fault. Watch it anyway.

Israeli? Want To Learn English For Business?

Or are you a haredi thinking of moving to the US if Israel forces you to join the army? Here are the English classes you'll need to make America your new home.

Video: A Retired Pornographer And A Retired Rabbi Join Forces To Make 'Kosher' Porn

That's the premise of a new independent film, Your Good Friend. The film is a mockumentary and the trailer, posted below, is brilliantly funny.

Borat Creator Stoned By Haredim In Jerusalem

British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen told the Cannes Film Festival that he was stoned by haredim in Jerusalem while dressed as Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion reporter character created and played by Cohen in the film Bruno.

Film Producer Threatens Jewish Film Festival Over Sex Abuse Documentary Ban

The producer of “Home Alone” and ”Mystic Pizza” is threatening the Los Angeles Jewish film festival after the festival’s director, Hilary Helstein, complained that Rosenfelt's documentary about child sex abuse in the haredi community, "Standing Silent,” amounts to a “witch hunt.”

Video: Hasidim – A Life Apart

A 15-year-old documentary by Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky, narrated by Sarah Jessica Parker and Leonard Nimoy, A Life Apart takes a largely nostalgic look at the hasidic community.

Video: Unorthodox – A Jewish Journey

A film about Modern Orthodox kids who leave the fold, and Modern Orthodox kids who 'flip out' and become haredi.

Video: Hats Of Jerusalem

Nati Adler's facinating documentary film about the different types of hats worn – almost as part of a uniforms – in Jerusalem.

Video: Rubashkin PR 'Documentary' Trailer

The men who made the Unity music fundraising video for Sholom Rubashkin are in the process of making a 'documentary' on Rubashkin's case. Here's the trailer:

Video: Documentary On Ultra-Orthodox Child Sexual Abuse

A Canadian television network made a documentary on haredi child sexual abuse as part of a larger series on religious sexual abuse. Here is the episode on haredi pedophilia:

Orthodox Filmmaker Says He Has Found Nails Used In The Crucifixion Of Jesus

"There is no doubt that the talented director Simcha Jacobovici created an interesting film with a real archaeological find at its centre, but the interpretation presented in it has no basis in archaeological findings or research," the Israel Antiquities Authority said.

Video Short: Almonds And Wine

A childhood romance, a wedding, and flight from the shtetl.

Film Trailer: The Black Bus

Winner of the Haifa International Film Festival Best Documentary Award.

The Black Bus

Women, Judaism and the haredi community's ongoing oppression of women caught on film.

Postville Documentary Plays To Hushed Hometown Crowd

You know going in that a 90-minute documentary film about the 2008 Agriprocessors immigration raid and its aftermath will not end happily for most of its imprisoned and deported main characters. But “Abused: The Postville Raid,” holds out hope of an eventual happy ending if enough people appreciate filmmaker Luis Argueta’s vision of immigrants “not as the other but as ourselves.”

Film: Romeo and Juliet In Yiddish

A new feature film retells William Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet” – in Yiddish.

New Documentary About Child Sexual Abuse In Haredi Baltimore

Standing Silent documents Baltimore Times editor Phil Jacobs' fight to expose haredi and Orthodox pedophiles, and the haredi rabbis who tried to stop him.

Chabad Filmmaker Merges Hollywood With Tikkun Olam

What was Elisabeth Moss, star of the AMC hit series “Mad Men” and an avowed Scientologist, doing hanging out with a Lubavitcher Jew? They were making a movie together to promote "tikkun olam," the Jewish value of repairing the world.

Jews And Baseball: A Love Story

New film documents the careers of the 160 Jews who have played major league baseball.

Video: The Porcelain Unicorn

Hitler Youth and a hidden Jewish child.

Video: Actor Justin Long Talks Kosher Food And Nude Sex Scenes Filmed On An Orthodox Family's Dining Room Table

I wonder how Sabbos dinner will go for the family once they see this video.