Premiere: Breaking Home Ties – Atlanta Jewish Film Festival

World Premiere Screening of Dynamic New Recorded Score for Rare Digitally Restored 1922 Silent Film
“Breaking Home Ties”
Presented by Reboot Studios and The National Center for Jewish Film
February 15, 2024 at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival

Back on the big screen after 100+ years, the only surviving print of Breaking Home Ties will be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival with the world premiere of a new original score produced by Reboot Studios with legendary artists Steve Berlin, Mocean Worker, Scott Amendola and more!

Discovered and restored with new intertitles by The National Center for Jewish Film, this compelling drama full of charm, romance and plot twists, features the Bergmann family whose idyllic life is broken when son David flees pre-revolutionary Russia for America. In New York he becomes a successful lawyer and woos smart, independent Rose. When the Bergmann parents leave St. Petersburg and emigrate to New York, immigrant life takes its toll. Will David marry Rose? Will the Bergmanns be reunited?

Breaking Home Ties, released for general audiences in 1922, was directed by Jewish filmmakers Frank N. Seltzer and George K. Rowlands with the express purpose of countering escalating antisemitism in the US. Featuring sympathetic Jewish lead characters, the film is a rare example from early cinema that explicitly depicts Jewish life and rituals. Long thought lost, the world’s only surviving print of Breaking Home Ties was rescued, restored and re-released by The National Center for Jewish Film.

The mesmerizing new score for Breaking Home Ties was composed, performed and recorded by a group of musicians drawn from some of today’s legendary jazz, americana, avant garde, punk, R&B and indie rock bands, and produced by David Katznelson, Reboot Studios. The music is a remarkable collaboration begun during the pandemic, commissioned and produced by Reboot Studios, and spearheaded by 12-time Grammy nominated musician Steve Berlin (Los Lobos).

Event details: Screening February 15, 2024, 7:40 p.m. at the Tara Theatre, Atlanta, GA. Introduced by Lisa Rivo, Co-Director of The National Center for Jewish Film. Post-screening panel discussion with Lisa Rivo, Reboot CEO David Katznelson, Breman Museum Executive Director Leslie Gordon and musicians Steve Berlin, Scott Amendola, Mocean Worker and Gretchen Gonzeles. The musicians will then perform a live set. Buy tickets here: https://ajff.org/film/breaking-home-ties

To arrange a screening of Breaking Home Ties with recorded score for film festival, museum, theater or event screenings, contact NCJF Co-Director Lisa Rivo (lisarivo@brandeis.edu)

New Original Music Score:

New Score Composed, performed & recorded by:
Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) – Saxaphones, Midisax, Keyboards, Percussion
Mocean Worker (aka Adam Dorn) – Bass Guitar, Keyboards
Scott Amendola (Charlie Hunter/Amendola Duo) – Drums, Percussion, Vocals, Electric Guitar, Electric Bass, Electronics

Contributions by:
Nels Cline (Wilco) – Guitar
Yuka Honda (Cibo Matto) – Keyboards
Gretchen Gonzales (Infinite River) – Vocals, Guitar, Organ
Joey Mazzola (Sponge) – Guitar

Film Credits
USA, 1922; 78 minutes, B&W, silent with English intertitles
Directed & Written By: Frank N. Seltzer & George K. Rowlands
Starring: Richard Farrell, Lee Kohlmar & Rebecca Weintraub, Jane Thomas, Betty Howe, Arthur Ashley

Film Restoration
Executive Director               Sharon Pucker Rivo
Co-Director                             Lisa Rivo
Technical Director               Rich Pontius
Consultant & Translator    Joseph P. Eckhardt
Film Laboratories                Cinema Arts, Inc, Frame Shop, PostWorks NY, Modulus Studios