“I really wanted to choose films that were showing something new about the queer experience,” says Yael Luttwak, artistic director of JxJ, the Jewish annual film and music festival and year-round programming at the Edlavitch DCJCC.
“It was very important for me to show audiences something they haven’t seen before, and they can’t see it unless they come to our festival. So I was really kind of disciplined about the choices.”
This year’s JxJ festival slate includes three carrying the label “Rated LGBTQ.” That includes Concerned Citizen, “about a gay couple who are raising their child in a gentrifying neighborhood. In this case, it’s in Tel Aviv, Israel, but it could be anywhere.” Variety described Israeli filmmaker Idan Haguel’s narrative feature as a “satirical parable on the insidious ways in which privilege can unleash the prejudice within.” (5/15, EDCJCC; 5/17, Bethesda Row Cinema)