WJFF Visionary Award: Barry Levinson

The WJFF’s Annual Visionary Award recognizes creativity and insight in presenting the full diversity of the Jewish experience through moving image. The 2017 honorees are two titans of independent cinema: Polish director Agnieszka Holland and the iconic American auteur Barry Levinson. Barry Levinson’s award will be presented alongside a screening of Liberty Heights.

Honoree:
Academy Award winner Director, Screenwriter, and Producer Barry Levinson has crafted an enviable reputation in the film industry as a director who blends literate and intelligent visions into films. Levinson was awarded the 1988 Best Director Oscar for the multiple Academy Award winning Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise.

In 1987, Levinson directed Robin Williams in the comedy Good Morning Vietnam, which went on to become one of the year’s most acclaimed and popular movies.

In 1991 Bugsy, which was directed and produced by Levinson, and was nominated for ten Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.

Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Levinson has used his hometown as the setting for four widely praised features: Diner, the semi-autobiographical comedy/drama that marked his directorial debut; Tin Men starring Danny DeVito and Richard Dreyfuss as warring aluminum siding salesmen; Avalon, in which his native city takes center stage through the recollections of an immigrant family; and Liberty Heights.

About the Film:
Liberty Heights
Barry Levinson dips back into his youth with the final edition of the semi-autobiographical Baltimore Quartet (Diner, Tin Men, Avalon).

In 1954, Ben Kurtzman (Ben Foster), a Jewish teen from Baltimore, is intrigued by new classmate Sylvia (Rebekah Johnson), who is one of the first African American students to attend his school. While Ben and Sylvia pursue a forbidden friendship, Ben’s older brother Van (Adrien Brody) is smitten with Dubbie (Carolyn Murphy), a beautiful and wealthy WASP who may as well live in another world.

Levinson’s sure direction keeps us focused on the maturation and evolution of a tight family unit, all while seismic cultural and societal shifts— the influx of automobiles, rock n’roll and desegregation—shake their hometown, and forever alter America’s course.