November 17, 2010 British Filmmaker Rex Bloomstein to Discuss Jewish Humor and Identity in His Films on Dec. 3

British filmmaker Rex Bloomstein has devoted much of his career to making films about Jewish history, culture and values. He will deliver a film talk on “Humor, Identity and the Holocaust” at the Library of Congress at noon on Friday, Dec. 3 in the Mary Pickford Theater, located on the third floor of the James Madison Building at 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C.

The program, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored jointly by the Library’s Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation, in cooperation with the Hebrew Language Table and the Washington Jewish Film Festival.

Bloomstein will discuss and present excerpts from his films including “The World of Jewish Humour,” featuring Alan King and Milton Berle; “Nightmare’s End,” focusing on the liberation of the concentration camps from the soldiers’ point of view; and “KZ,” an exploration of modern-day Mauthausen, Austria, where one of the concentration camps was housed.

Bloomstein began his career at the BBC in the United Kingdom in 1970, directing cinema verité studies of British life. His early works centered on exposing the previously closed penal system. His film “Strangeways” about a men’s prison in Manchester, England, garnered two British Academy Awards. His later films explore the Holocaust and other international human rights abuses.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs and exhibitions. Many of the Library’s rich resources can be accessed through its website at www.loc.gov and via interactive exhibitions on a personalized website at myLOC.gov.

The Packard Campus is a state-of-the-art facility where the nation’s library acquires, preserves and provides access to the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of films, television programs, radio broadcasts and sound recordings.