Hebrew Center Screens a Gentle Fable

The Summer Institute at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center this year celebrates the 10th anniversary of its film series, the Best of the Boston Jewish Film Festival. A season of eight films selected from the Boston festival will open at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center this Sunday, June 20, with the screening of Wondrous Oblivion at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $10.

The season’s opening film, Wondrous Oblivion, is set in England in the 1960s and follows a cricket-obsessed boy who gets caught up in racial tensions when he befriends his new Jamaican neighbors. The San Francisco Chronicle describes the film, which won the Audience Award at the Boston festival, as “a gentle fable, full of wit and charm.” Variety Magazine has praised the film for its “wonderfully observed comic moments.”

Since last season, working with a major grant, the Hebrew Center has upgraded its projection and sound equipment in what is now named the Harriet B. Freedberg Learning Center. Improvements include a commercial-grade digital projector, new sound amplifiers and a new 12-foot screen.

The film festival continues on Sundays, skipping only the July 4 weekend, through August 15. The series includes documentaries, comedies and dramas; the full lineup of Summer Institute films, and of this season’s speaker series programs at the Hebrew Center, is online ar mvhc.us/summer_institute.htm.