Thursday marks the beginning of the Jerusalem Film Festival. Now in it's 25th year, the Jerusalem Film Festival selected the family friendly WALL-E to open the festival in the coveted Sultan's Pool screening. A curious selection since this is the second year in a row a Pixar flick has opened the festival, but it doesn't really matter what film opens the festival. Waterworld would seem like Citizen Kane with the backdrop of the Old City. The JFF runs from July 10th through the 19th with showings at cinemas across the city featuring international feature films, documentaries and shorts with a strong focus on Jewish and Israeli films.

The guest list is quite impressive this year with uber-producer Mike Medavoy and director Michael Winterbottom. Jerusalemite is fairly stoked that the festival will be welcoming John Malkovich, who will be taking questions after a showing of the movie he is most closely associated with these days, Being John Malkovich.

A new welcome addition to this year's festival is "Children in the Festival," featuring numerous children's films and workshops. A full schedule can be found here.

If film ain't your bag and you just want to enjoy the beautiful Jerusalem evening weather with some tunes be sure to check out the free nightly live music at the Cinemateque plaza. Performances run every night of the festival from the 11th through the 19th, starting at 21:30 and feature Jazz, Classical and rock. Click here for a full schedule.

Apropos to a film festival taking place in Jerusalem, "Jerusalem Moments - Small Moments of a Different Jerusalem" features the films of ten Israeli and Palestinian directors each offering their personal perspective of on life between the city's eastern and western sectors.

There are also many other sub-festivals and series, including Moonlight Cinema, the Conference of The Forum for the Preservation of Audio-Visual Memory in Israel, and an Exodus tribute.

The festival might not be as important as its planners tout it as being, but this year, many movies are set to screen here as a stop in-between Cannes and Toronto, a not unimpressive coup.

And there's still a downright staggering array of movies of all genres from all around the world, reaffirming the festival's place as one of the premiere brand names on Jerusalem's cultural calendar.

More coverage of the Jerusalem Film Festival, including an exclusive interview with its director, continues on Jerusalemite in the coming days.

Arik Sinai: the Cohen Ranger

Jerusalemites have shouldered more than enough sorrow to justify the sense of fatalism that often seems to hang over the city, but that fatalism, fostered by years of conflict and strife, is of a peculiar sort; instead of inspiring apathy, it seems to fire city residents' desire to live for and fully appreciate the moment. Jerusalemites may resign themselves to the possibility of lives being cruelly stolen away, but they steadfastly refuse to resign themselves to the possibility of lives misspent. It's that aspect of the Jerusalem character, more than any physical defense, that keeps the city alive and ensures it remains the place we love. So when tragedy strikes, as it did this week, perhaps the best way to respond is in the Jerusalemite manner: honor the dead by honoring life. This weekend, thousands of city residents will go out and celebrate the simple fact of being alive in the Holy City. Join them.

Among your many options this week for celebration:

• Tonight marks the beginning of the free Summer Nights concert and performance series, taking place all over the city. Everything's kicking off with a performance by the Kolben Dance Company twirling through 18th century waltzes pumped out by the Israeli Camerata Orchestra.

• If waltzing ain't your thing, you can catch Yaron Peer at the Confederation House, playing an eclectic set of pan-Middle Eastern acoustic music.

• Summer Nights continues, in a contradictory fashion, on Friday afternoon with a series of free rock shows at the Yellow Submarine by a number of Israelis bands. After all, the best way to acknowledge American Independence Day is to revel in the country's greatest gift to the world: rock 'n' roll.

• Friday afternoon also plays host to the Arabesque Dance Troupe, performing authentic midriff-baring Middle Eastern dance routines at Beit Shmuel.

• On Saturday, entertain (and secretly educate) the kids with Where Is Mrs. Gabbai?, a musical tour through Yemin Moshe brought to you by the Train Theater.

• After the close of Shabbat on Saturday night, you can witness a unique instance of international (and inter-Jewish) cultural exchange when aged Israeli rock god Arik Sinai runs through a set of Leonard Cohen covers at the Yellow Submarine. Can he out-Cohen Jeff Buckley? Only one way to find out.

• If Cohen's moody oeuvre doesn't do anything for you, perhaps you'd feel more comfortable with Barbra and Bette - or at least, their songs (and others') as interpreted by Adina Feldman and her band. Wine and cheese included.

• Catch Restless, a recent Israeli/French collaborative film, in a special screening at the Jerusalem Theatre Sunday evening which will be attended by the film's director and cast.

• If you have a moment on Monday, swing by artist Noa Nahari's exhibit "Side Walk," which has to do with sidewalk installations as they relate to socio-political meta-narratives, or something. No, really.

• If you like having your mind totally blown, man, stop by the Jerusalem Theatre on Tuesday for Glow, a blacklight theatre comedy that promises to help you find yourself. Don't forget to eat some mushroom...um, pizza before going.

• With a one-time run starting on Tuesday (and continuing through Thursday), an American-European-Israeli production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic The Sound of Music has arrived in Jerusalem - but will Israelis have much sympathy for the plight of a family whose greatest loss to the Nazis was a nice house and an audience?

• For those of you on the avant garde tip, don't miss Hazira's The Mill Owner and the Miller on Wednesday night, a modern dance take on a European Jewish fable.
  

And if that's not enough for you, there's lot more to see in the Events section.

Who said Jerusalem is a lame town? Please step forward and reveal yourself. The coming week, as with all weeks, is marked by a cornucopia of culturally enriching offerings for all tastes....

• This Saturday morning is the final performance (in Hebrew) of the Train Theater's puppet-driven adaptation of Bialik's Far Over the Sea.

• Saturday afternoon, the Bloomfield Science Museum's award-winning Dr. Molecule welcomes the city's children into his laboratory (in Hebrew).

• After Shabbat, Beit Avi Chai's Saturday night concert series continues with a performance from middle-aged alternative singer-songwriter Ari Gorali, who will surely perform his edgy radio hit "Its All Honey."

• Also on Saturday night, Daila's Vanguard: Music Without Borders concert series presents a jam session centered around Turkish saxophonist Albert Beger and bassist Michael Klinghoffer, who served as a key teacher in the training of Israeli jazz sensation Avishai Cohen.

• On Sunday, the hora lives on as the Gerard Bechar center offers Israeli folk dancing for beginners and experts alike.

• On Monday afternoon, two former Soviets, on cello and piano, perform the works of Chopin and Masana for free at Hebrew University's Mt. Scopus campus.

• Monday night brings the weekly English-language standup open mic at the Off The Wall Comedy Basement downtown.

• On Tuesday night, an American college (and post-college, if you ask Will Farrell) ritual called The Naked Mile comes to Hebrew U on Tuesday, including drink specials at the Reznik student nightlife hotspot.

• Also on Tuesday, Germany's acclaimed Carsten Daerr jazz ensemble comes to the Yellow Submarine, with free admission.

• On Wednesday (and every day through 19 July), photographer Arnon Toussia-Cohen's free exhibit of candid photos taken at a popular Tel Aviv train depot wrestles with issues of privacy in the contemporary age. Through these photos at the Artists' House, "the intimate is exposed and takes form," as Toussia-Cohen puts it.

• Next Thursday, July 3, acclaimed rebetiko ensemble Red Flower explores blues-like Greek folk music at the Yellow Submarine.

• Also on Thursday, the Old Train Station compound springs back into action with a reservations-only free performance by the Kolben Dance Company, accompanied by 18th-century Viennese waltzes played live by the Israel Camerata Orchestra.

• That same day, Beit Avi Chai stages the finale of its series of special screenings and lectures entitled Fact and Fiction: 60 Years of Israeli Film and Filmmakers, as Yulie Cohen Gerstel presents her 2007 documentary memoir about the tensions surrounding her brother becoming charedi, My Brother.

Jerusalemite threatens to present you with another batch of recommended activities on the eve of next weekend. And don't hold back: Live a little and enjoy our Events section, searchable by neighborhood, date range and more. Additional events are being added all the time.

Courtesy photo of Carsten Daerr and band, back at home in Germany.

Start things off in a relaxed manner on the 1st by visiting the Israel Draws Jerusalem exhibition at Mamilla and then heading to Safra Square to take in Rolling Flags, in which some people will ride some bikes across the square and then give Israeli flags to the mayor before seminal Israeli fusion rock act Ethnix goes on. But don't worry, the fun ramps up from there, and you'll be glad you saved your energy by the time night falls and the real party begins.

Dominating Monday night celebrations is Laila Lavan, this year's rebranded Student Day festival, which, taking a page from the beer-and-self-righteousness-soaked playbook of those debauched Tel Avivis, lasts all night and into the morning, filling up the time with a bevy of cultural activities, copious big-name concerts and discounted breakfast all over town. Considering that Jerusalem is usually a veritable crypt by 2 AM, an all-night festival is a strange and terrifying occurrence, and it remains to be seen what sorts of bizarreness will transpire when thousands of normally early-retiring Jerusalemites keep the party going well into Monday. They may well be so confused and disoriented that they participate for a change in the traditionally knit yarmulke-dominated Jerusalem Day march to the Western Wall.

And with all those boisterous young people with their hip-hop music and salsa dancing exhausted and hungover by the time Tuesday rolls around, our thoroughfares will be safe for families, labor unions and politicians, who will take to the streets Tuesday evening for a float-filled march to the Teddy Stadium, where Subliminal will regale the assembled masses with his unique brand of pro-establishment yet somehow brazenly rebellious rapping.

And while all this wackiness is going on, Jerusalem's theaters and concert halls are hosting a series of more thoughtful and edifying entertainment events as part of the ongoing Israel Festival.

Oh, and punctuating every day of celebrations will be - of course - fireworks. Lots and lots of fireworks. Because how will you know you're having fun unless the sky is filled with exploding colors?

Photo of Laila Lavan main stage co-headliner Efrat Gosh at a recent Jerusalem gig courtesy of smadars from flickr under a creative commons license; Student Day revelers throwing their hands in the air like they care for Jerusalem very much courtesy of Student Union spokesperson's office.

Elad Keidan, a student at Jerusalem's Sam Spiegel Film and Television School, beat out 16 other student films and was awarded first prize in Cinéfondation-Short Film Jury at 61st Cannes Film Festival in France on Friday.

Keidan's short film, Himnon (Anthem) runs 36 minutes and follows the adventures of a young man Amnon who ventures through the droll Jerusalem neighborhood of Katamonim on a Friday afternoon to buy milk and in the span of a few hours meets a slew of characters and through these interactions his life changes dramatically. In an interview with Israeli daily Haaretz, Keidan calls it the "Israeli Big Lewbowski."

Jerusalemite can only surmise that the Dude-like lead needs milk so he can keep up his habit of rapidly consuming White Morroccans, a cocktail made from milk and arak.