MOVIES: Special Screenings — Film Festival resumes tonight with ‘Against the Tide’

  Las Vegas' ninth annual Jewish Film Festival (which continues on various days through Jan. 31) picks up again tonight (Thursday, Jan. 21) with the documentary "Against the Tide," an exploration of U.S. policy during the Holocaust — and one radical activist's attempts to make the rescue of Europe's Jews a top priority of America's war policy. Dustin Hoffman narrates.

  The screening will be at 7 p.m. at the Adelson School Performing Arts Center in Summer, 9700 W. Hillpointe Road. Oscar-winning filmmaker Richard Trank is scheduled to attend and moderate a post-screening discussion. Tickets, which are $10, are available at www.jfsalv.org.

  The documentary includes rare interview footage of radical Peter Bergson that Trank found at the U.S. Holocaust Museum — footage "that we didn't realize existed," he notes. Filmmaker Claude Lanzmann shot the footage for his monumental 1985 documentary "Shoah," but Lanzmann decided not to use it.

  When Trank and his colleagues watched it, he says, "we were blown away by the interview," which "changed the direction of the film" — from an exploration of "how Jewish refugees were treated by the Allies" to one focusing on Bergson's efforts, along with the American Jewish community's response to his crusade.

  But the documentary's not just for Jewish audiences, says Trank, who's based at Moriah Films, the filmmaking arm of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. (Trank's Oscar came for the 1997 documentary "The Long Way Home" — other credits include "Ever Again," "Unlikely Heroes" and "I Have Never Forgotten You: The The Life & Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal.")

  "These subjects are important to the overall community," Trank notes, adding that this documentary not only deals with "what happened in history" but draws "parallels with things going on today."

  After tonight's screening, the Jewish Film Festival resumes Saturday night and presents three additional screenings Sunday, all at the Adelson theater. Watch the Vegas Voice blog for more comments from filmmakers; log on to www.jfsalv.org for tickets and info.