Next Year Jerusalem

Choosing life in a person's final chapter is the poignant subtext of this new powerful documentary, a lyrical portrait of eight nursing home residents who make a pilgrimage to Israel. Offered a seat on the bus for a 10-day tour, the viewer accompanies individuals with various personal theologies in and out of museums, crossing Israeli landscapes from mountains to desert. But Next Year Jerusalem is less a story about tourists in a foreign land than it is a meditation on the sanctity of human experience and a tribute to the wisdom acquired in the course of a lifetime. Earnest and nuanced, it is a true exploration of living and dying, hope and fear, travel and memory. It's a celebration of and a reverent tribute to life's eldest travelers.