As I wrote in 2012, Hilary Helstein is a disgrace who rejected a film about rabbinic sex abuse because Jews revere their rabbis and then actively campaigned against the film to stop it screening at other festivals.
Susan King writes for the Los Angeles Times:
The Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival, which opens Thursday and runs for a week, is a labor of love for its director, Hilary Helstein, a filmmaker who directed the 2009 documentary “As Seen Through These Eyes.”
“There’s so much that goes into putting on a program like this,” said Helstein. “L.A. is a tough place to compete, because there is so much competition with cultural events and film festivals. There is also a tremendous amount of competition in the Jewish community with cultural events that are happening at the Skirball or the Museum of Tolerance. So to be unique and have something new and different that has never been seen before is always a challenge for me.”
Helstein travels to film festivals, attends the American Film Market and meets with distributors to find films, in addition to soliciting filmmakers for submissions and talking to directors of other major Jewish film festivals in such cities as Toronto and San Diego.
