NO WAY TO SAY GOODBYE FULL MOVIE

NO WAY TO SAY GOODBYE full movie from Jonas M. Jacobs on Vimeo.

Detroit Jewish Film Fest Photos

Photos taken by Larry Jacobs at the Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival. Detroit Michigan, USA – April 28, 2012

SOUTH AMERICA JOURNAL - 2011

LEG 1 - CHILE

I arrived in Santiago, Chile on Thursday, February 10. After three years working on my film and hustling to promote it, I decided it was time to leave the states for a bit. I had some extra miles saved, enough for a free one-way flight. So, I picked Santiago as I had never been to Chile and had heard good things about this up-and-coming city. A one way flight to South America with a bit of savings and no plan. I got in to the Santiago airport and immediately had to pay a $140 entry fee. After getting through Customs, I picked up my baggage and looked for a bus in to the city. I arrived at La Casa Roja. This is a huge old estate of a building in the Barrio Brasil, a neighborhood bordering on dangerous but charmingly dingy at the same time. Its a large hostel. I stayed in the large dorm room. A lot of partying here. I wont go in to the details, but the highlight was a fat man from Savannah, Georgia flying off the bunk above me in a drunken stupor, and then getting up seemingly unaffected and humbly returning to his bed. I met several interesting characters in Santiago, and spent a lot of money as well. Chile is not cheap, by any means. Something about Santiago rubbed me the wrong way. I also had a screening of my film set up in Bolivia in about 3 weeks (March 1), so I decided to leave Santiago and make my way to Valparaiso, a seaside Chilean port, famous for its funky architecture and ascensores (outdoor elevators that carry people up hills, think Angels Flight in Los Angeles). Also, some great, artistic graffiti. I stayed here for about a week, meeting people from around the world and cooking my own meals in the hostel kitchen. Also visited Pablo Neruda’s house (one of three). Valparaiso has its San Francisco style charm, but the wanderlust was strong and Bolivia was waiting, so I decided to continue North. A seven hour bus journey to La Serena, a mid size town on the Pacific coast. It was described as "A thinking mans beach resort" in the Lonely Planet book. I’m in. So I was in La Serena for four nights. Spent a couple days as a beach bum, soaking up sun on the beautiful Chilean coast. Also took a day trip to Vicuña, birthplace of famous Chilean poet, Gabriela Mistral. After La Serena, a 24 hour bus ride to Arica, Chile, the northernmost Chilean city. I spent a night in Arica at "Hostal Sunny Days." It could not have been more aptly named, as I left Arica with a nice tan and a couple of burns where I forgot to apply sun block. Next, an eight hour bus to La Paz. When we reached the border, a hefty $135 entry visa fee awaited. The joys of being from the good ole USA. Arrived in La Paz and the altitude definitely was present. Drank a couple coca teas and got my first taste of Bolivian food. Or rather, my first re-taste of Bolivian food. The last time I was in the country was in 2007, when I shot my film. It felt good to be back, altitude sickness and all. I got on the next bus to Cochabamba, where I was scheduled to screen the film in a matter of days. LEG 2 - BOLIVIA

When I arrived in Cochabamba, I went straight to the phone booth and called my original home stay family, the one I stayed with in 2007. They thought I was calling from the US. "Its good to hear your voice, Jonas." "No, I’m IN Cochabamba." "OH, come over right away!" Hopped in a cab and made my way. My three weeks there went very fast. The first screening went very well. About 100 people showed up, including many of the community members. It was as if I was watching the film for the first time. Very emotional, indeed. I had three more screenings at a Cinema Cafe there, Cine Cafe 35 mm. These were very intimate screenings, and it was interesting to screen the film to a primarily non-Jewish audience. After my return to Cochabamba, I went to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. I had never been to Santa Cruz, just for a day back in 2007. So, I was excited. Also, one of the members of the community in Cochabamba who is featured in the film now lived in Santa Cruz. So I stayed with him and his wife. I was reminded of staying with my grandparents in Palm Springs, in the best of ways. From Santa Cruz city, I took a bit of a touristy journey in to the heart of Che Guevara country, aka the place where Che made his last stand before being executed by CIA-trained Bolivian military. Two nights in Samaipata, including an 8 hour solo hike through mountainous terrain where I got to see many indigenous farming communities, come face to face with a lot of cows, and see many varieties of wild birds and butterflies. After Samaipata, I wanted to visit Valle Grande and La Higuera, the village where Che was killed. At breakfast, I told a Swiss traveler of my plans, and he was game to join. Off we went, Valle Grande bound – a three-hour micro bus ride. One of the passengers who we chatted up was from Valle Grande, and remembered seeing Che’s body layed out at the hospital when he was a boy, on a field trip with his elementary school class. Phillip and I arrived in Valle Grande. We dropped our things off and went to the main plaza, where a cabby approached us, claiming he could take us to La Higuera and be back at night. I needed to be back in Santa Cruz the next day to show my film there. So, we ate lunch and then took him up on his offer - 200 Bolivianos, approx 25 bucks for the both of us. A five hour journey through the unpaved, treacherous mountain roads of "La Ruta del Che." We arrived in La Higuera, where they have a small museum set up in the school house he was executed in. His bloodied uniform is hung on the wall. We saw, we conquered, we left. Another five hours, this time at night. The screening in Santa Cruz went well, there are many ex-Cochabambinos living there. They all received the film well and appreciated it very much. The next day, a forty-hour bus ride to Buenos Aires. I arrived here two weeks ago today. I’ve been staying with an old friend and am now in a hostel, reaching the end of my wanderlust and the end of my money.

LEG 3 - ARGENTINA Writing this time from a coffee shop in my Buenos Aires neighborhood, Montserrat. A beautiful, historic and kinda gritty neighborhood in the city's center. Since I last wrote, a lot has gone down. I'm pretty excited... when all is said and done, I'm living my dream. Of course, it's not always easy, but I persevere. I've got two screenings coming up for NO WAY TO SAY GOODBYE, one on August 6, as part of the 15th Sau Paulo Jewish Film Festival in Sau Paulo, Brazil. The other on August 10 at AMIA - the Argentina Israelite Mutual Association, here in Buenos Aires. I'm currently scraping by as a dishwasher at a swanky but affordable Polish-themed Cafe/Bar called KRAKOW. In the San Telmo neighborhood. I work two nights a week. As for accommodation, I'm working 3 nights a week at Hostel Kilca, a hippy hostel that attracts motorbikers, lost Bohemian souls and the occasional French family. I work in exchange for a roof over my head. Getting by on about two hundred pesos a week - the equivalent of $50. I am digging Buenos Aires and I think I would like to stay for a little while longer. With making my film and touring with it and managing screenings myself in South America, plus my fluency in Spanish and my unconventional, life-experience-based path, I think I would be an asset to the Latin American division of a film production company based in Buenos Aires or LA. Something along the lines of film distribution working in Latin America or with Latin American films. I'm a big believer in bridging gaps between the USA and Latin America, in general, and with my film background, it’s a perfect fit.

BOLIVIA JOURNAL - 2007

Bolivia Thus Far (February 10, 2007)

The flight down was very smooth, though we took a red-eye so the first couple of days were a very weary few. During orientation, many of us were a bit sick from the travel and cultural adjustments, but we are all doing well now. There are twenty-five kids in my program, twenty of which are girls. So I guess you could say I’m one of the lucky few guys! Most of the kids are pretty chill, and most are from small "hippy" liberal arts schools like Vassar, Barnard, etc. They’re good people. Cochabamba is a very relaxed, laid back city. The people are some of the friendliest I’ve ever met and the weather is about a constant seventy degrees (they call it the city of eternal spring). Everything is very cheap here. I can get pretty much any food or drink I want for less than five dollars. A fancy dinner with some good wine might cost ten dollars. It’s one dollar for every eight Bolivianos. And the food is damn good here too. There are so many wandering, homeless dogs, which you can hear congregating at night. They call them vagabondes. I’m thinking of maybe doing an abstract short film about them. I brought my brand new Canon GL2 camera. The main film I’m trying to make is about the small Jewish community in Cochabamba. I’m interested in how they negotiate the dual identity of Bolivian and Jew, two identities that don’t exactly go hand in hand.

The Second Coming (February 28, 2007) I love my home stay family. There are five kids, two abuelitas (grandmas) – one of them is ninety-nine years old. Camila, the three-year old grandkid, is the cutest. I play hide and seek with her all the time (a funny image, I know). The house is an old-style, hacienda-type house, with bedrooms that flank a central courtyard. I’m a huge fan of the hacienda style, as I can enjoy the nice weather even when inside. Overall, the house is always full of life and it gives me many opportunities to practice Spanish (which is improving, but still needs work).

The program here is very time-consuming, with seven hours of class a day, so I don’t have that much free time. However, we did take a group trip last week to the infamous CARNAVAL in Oruro. I was pretty inebriated the whole time, soaking in the revelry of almost twenty hours of parading, including traditional Bolivian dancers and music from across the country.

After Oruro, we hit up La Paz, the world’s highest capital city. This city is unlike any I have ever seen, literally built into the mountains at 12,000 feet in the sky. It seems to be filled with half Bolivian businessmen and half indigenous Aymara market vendors. Its streets are some of the most colorful, smelly, and culturally distinct ones I have ever observed.

Finally, we saw a concert in El Alto, a heavily indigenous sprawling slum-city above La Paz. We watched some psychedelic folkloric Bolivian band play, followed by an indigenous rapper freestlying in Aymara, one of the indigenous languages in the area. My group knew that I had a freestyle or two up my sleeve, so they prodded me to go onstage and I proceeded to battle this guy - Aymara vs. English. If that wasn’t crazy enough, it turns out this concert was on Bolivian radio!

Part Three (April 16, 2007) We had a few other excursions after La Paz, the highlight being the old mines of Potosí, the highest city in the world and, at one time, one of the richest in the world for its silver mines. It’s said that they could have built a bridge of silver from Bolivia to Spain with all the silver they extracted from the mines in Potosi. Bolivia has a sad history of exploitation by European powers and the US, but I wont get into that right now.

We also all spent a week living in separate adobe shacks in the Bolivian countryside. My house there had no electricity, and only recently received a waterspout via the efforts of a US NGO. I have never eaten so many potatoes in my life, as the countryside of Bolivia lives off the potato. I also have never seen such an amazing array of stars. The week in the countryside left me shower-less, filled with fleas, and really tanned. I will never forget my family there, asking me questions like, "Is the sky the same in the United States?" The mother did not speak Spanish, only Quechua, one of the indigenous languages spoken in the countryside.

Fourth Time Around (June 16, 2007) My program ended about a month ago, and my parents came to visit right as the program was ending. We headed out of Cochabamba and traveled through some of Bolivia: Sucre, La Paz and Lake Titicaca. After that, we headed to Machu Pichu and, really, none of the pictures do it justice. Its one of the most inspiring places I’ve ever been, even just to wonder how a society could have picked such an incredibly beautiful place to live. I recommend everyone gets to see this wonder at least once in their life, if you weren’t already planning on going.

Next was Buenos Aires... first of all, let me all tell you how in shock I was (I couldn’t really come to terms with myself for two days or so). Driving into Buenos Aires from the airport was like driving into some sort of super-clean, ultra-modern first world utopia after spending so long in Bolivia. Being in Buenos Aires really gave me some perspective on my time in Bolivia, and how "underdeveloped" Bolivia really is. After catching a tango show and a Boca Juniors soccer match at the world famous La Bombonera, my parents and I toured the city for a few days, ending with a gigantic serving of the best steak I’ve ever eaten (and in comparison to the US, so damn cheap).

My parents left after about 5 days in Buenos Aires and headed back to the states. After they left, I decided to stick around Buenos Aires. I stayed in a couple different hostels, spoke a lot of English and met people traveling from all around the world. Buenos Aires is a huge, cosmopolitan city that can sometimes get overwhelming. But all in all, I’m a huge fan of the Porteño culture, which is one steeped in perfectionism, vanity, and cafe culture. I had an adventure-filled journey back from Buenos Aires to Cochabamba. I tried to take as many trains as I could, since I’m a fan, but many of the train routes have been sold off to private companies and are now not functional. I played music with some Argentine hippies on one of the trains, hitchhiked with a couple from Rosario, made empanadas with a family in the northern city of Jujuy, and talked about ancient religious philosophy with a Bolivian indigenous man named Inti (sun in Quechua) on the train from the Argentinian border into Bolivia.

5th Time’s A Charm (August 3, 2007) After my first journey outside of Bolivia, I became much more focused on my documentary when I got back. I began an intense shooting and research schedule. I also realized how important this project has been for me - not only as my first really extensive film project, but an important step in the identity search that all of us have come to call life. My genuine interest and willingness to work around the clock tells me that filmmaking is what I want to pursue. Who would have thought I would come to Bolivia and become so interested in Judaism? I received a grant from my school to continue work on the project – I think ill extend my flight and should be back in Chicago by August 25.

Preliminary Poster Designs - November, 2009

NEW SCREENINGS ANNOUNCED, list of screenings thus far!

JUST SET UP 2 NEW SCREENINGS... 1 at AMIA - the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association on August 10 and the other at the Sau Paulo Jewish Film Festival in Brazil. Festival dates: Aug 1 - 7.

• Montreal Jewish Public Library. Montreal, Canada. Permanent Collection – June 2010
• Limmud New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand – August 2010
• Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival. Palm Beach FL – December 2010
• Skirball Cultural Center. Los Angeles CA. Part of “Documentos” series – January 2011
• Simon I. Patiño Cultural Center. Cochabamba, Bolivia – March 2011
• Cine Café 35 mm. Cochabamba, Bolivia – March 2011
• Synagogue, Jewish Community. Santa Cruz, Bolivia – March 2011
• AMIA – Argentine Israelite Mutual Association. Buenos Aires, Argentina – August 2011
• Sau Paulo Jewish Film Fest. Sau Paulo, Brazil – August 2011