Zelimo is a coming of age film that tells the story of a young Jewish farm boy who embarks on a journey from Russia to America in search of a better life. The film, through flashbacks, looks at the boy’s haunted past as he seeks a new life in a new world.
The story begins to develop in Russia, where Zelimo lives with his parents and his younger brother. Even if Stalin was dead, his legacy lived on in Russia. People were disappearing and afraid that something bad might happen to their families, especially keeping in mind that being Jews they were looked down upon by even the common people.
The film captures its viewers with its dark first scenes, accompanied by tension building music. The lead character doesn’t look older than 12, he has black paint on his face and is preparing to do something dangerous, illegal or both. A few flashback scenes indicate that whatever is about to happen is going to reflect something that has happened in the past – even if the events shown during this flashback leave only a vague idea of the thoughts that pass through Zelimo’s mind.
The second important moment in the film is the crossing of the Russian border – which has never been an easy thing to do. Night trains, cold, tension, passport checks and then another flashback all lead us to the second Zelimo’s family arrives on US soil. Those of you who have been paying attention will note that only Zelimo and his mother descend to the station platform and nothing is known about the other passengers who were traveling on that same night train.
While it is interesting that the director decided to use filtering technologies, with emphasis on the blue coloring which makes the film artier – on the down side that technique may be confusing for many viewers. I would have been happier if the director just stuck to telling the story and not overdoing the visuals.
I found the soundtrack a bit odd for the film, as it mostly included modern US pop and rock music which seemed out of place — being completely unrelated to the subject matter. On a side note, even if the film was a US production, it felt weird to listen to everyone speaking fluent English. The main characters were Jews and they had spent quite some time in Russia. Yet, there were only a few phrases used in languages other than English – which made the film a bit unreal, as one could see that the reality of the time was not being projected accurately. I have noted similar issues in another coming of age film titled I am David – where instead of setting subtitles to the foreign speech, all of a sudden everyone started speaking in English.
Generally speaking, I don’t think the adult actors were convincing enough and overall failed to portray their emotions, which must have been quite intense, keeping in mind what they had to go through.Once in the US, Zelimo is split from his mother as they are sent to male and female camps for Jewish immigrants. Zelimo is has trouble adjusting, as he hadn’t met a lot of people on the Russian farm where he grew up. He even noted that some people treated him differently than the rest because he was a Jew. And to the people from his own community, he is considered an outsider as he was not raised religiously and is not too willing to accept all the religious restrictions that are imposed on him.
Overall, Zelimo is a good movie that focuses on the struggle of a boy to fit in – in a place, with new people in another country. The film has some educational value as it shows where violence – both physical and mental — may lead.In the end, I hesitate to recommend this film highly, as it personally failed to involve me emotionally and I felt it too cliched at times. It must have been a real challenge for the film’s director to cover a theme that has been done before, with a new twist. While he succeeds to an extent, I felt that Aleks Rosenberg generally failed in that respect.
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This review would not have been possible without the valuable support of SCVMC.net who provided the DVD for it.
I had only heard The Skykid.com Radio a few times when I thought to myself that he needed more of a variety for the station. As I thought about this, several ideas came to mind based on shows that some of my local radio stations had. So I sat down and put together a demo show, recording using my cell phone since I didn’t have a mic at the time. To my surprise, Skykid loved the idea and wanted to know if I’d like to do more. I was just trying to be helpful and come up with some new ideas and didn’t really expect to get into the radio business.
If you would like to continue to follow Matt’s career, then you can go to his MySpace or his 
1. Ghost World
2. Juno
3. Now and Then
On the brink of adolescence, Tracy is a straight A student, but a naive one. She cuts classes and smokes to alleviate the emotional pain that is suffered at home. She befriends the most popular and prettiest girl in school. Evie leads Tracy into a life of petty crimes and misbehavior. Once Tracy chooses this path, her world gets flipped upside down. It creates tension between her family, friends, and teachers to whom she was once close. Everyone tries telling her about how she is acting, but she would rather not hear it, listening instead to her new friend Evie.
Some of the choirs featured on the DVD : the Knabenchor Hannover, Les Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois, Polskie Slowiki, the Wiener Sängerknaben, and the Worcester Cathedral Choir.Music in the flim includes “Nunc Dimittis” (Parsons), “An die Musik” (Schubert), “Balualow” (A Ceremony of Carols by Britten), “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” (Bach), “Bastien und Bastienne” (Mozart), “Le Duo des chats” (Rossini), “Brundibar” (Krasa), and “Pie Jesu” (Requiem by Faure). There are also excerpts from music by Pergolesi, Bach, Allegri, and Tchaikovski.
Jordan Jansen – One of the things about mentoring and supporting young talent is that you get to see them grow and emerge into lives that hold untold dreams. After a while you are able to spot the winners and the ones that will likely breech the barrier of voice change and go on to continue on stage or in film. They have a certain charisma. A certain attitude about how they approach life. One of the most noticeable qualities about those kids is their ability to embrace change. Unlike the rest of the world that seeks complacency, these special youngsters thrive on the excitement of the next change, the next thrill, the next hurtle to jump. They actually thrive on the possibility of the unexpected and the achievement of milestones.
Finding information about them, especially in English, is a really harsh task. Currently they maintain their online presence mainly on their
Thankfully, their 
I am really fond of their music and will end up having their album in the near future. In the meantime, if any of you speaks German better than me (and I’m sure many of you do) do not hestitate to leave comments with things about J1 and J2 and their music which I have missed.
About a year ago, when I first found out about Apollo 3, I wrote a 
