The Pittsburgh Jewish Israeli Film Festival closes with an Oscar nominee and a half-dozen other movies. A sampling:

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

"Ajami," an Oscar nominee for best foreign language film, is even more of a Rubik's Cube than 2004's "Crash." It fractures the story and the time line, so we sometimes see the end before the middle; conclusions we drew turn out to be wrong.

It's set in Jaffa's Ajami neighborhood, a volatile stew of cultures and conflicting views among Jews, Muslims and Christians. The story is told through a half-dozen or more inhabitants caught in the crossfire of violence, vendettas, mistaken identity, the tyranny of financial debts or obligations, and forbidden attraction.

Filmmakers Yaron Shani (an Israeli Jew) and Scandar Copti (a Palestinian raised in Jaffa) drew upon real events and nonprofessionals, did extensive workshopping and shot their movie chronologically. The accents and locations may be foreign, but the cycle of violence and dialogue have the ring of truth.

"My brother says that fear is the biggest disgrace and that only cowards run away," a boy suggests. "It wasn't an Arab who got killed," a man grouses. "They won't just patrol a bit and that's it. They're turning the world upside down." A father warns his daughter, "You're a Christian, he's a Muslim. You can't get married," and if she does, he will break her bones.

"Ajami" presumes the moviegoer has some knowledge of the geography, history and complexities of the neighborhood. The movie traffics in tragic turns and disputes -- preventable, accidental and marinated through time -- that would be richer with a bit more background for the uninitiated.

The fact that none of the cast had studied acting or appeared in a film before is remarkable. Their faces give "Ajami" energy, plausibility and power.

In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles.

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

Hank Greenspun looked a little like actor Jack Palance and lived the sort of larger-than-life existence that belongs on the big screen.

A Brooklyn native who briefly worked as a lawyer, he moved to Las Vegas after World War II. He rubbed elbows with Bugsy Siegel and Howard Hughes, helped to smuggle guns and ammo to Israel, was part-owner of a casino, a pugnacious newspaper publisher and columnist, and real-estate baron.

If that weren't enough, he battled the IRS and the mob, witnessed nuclear testing in the Nevada desert, was a burglary target during the Watergate scandal and tried to broker Middle Eastern peace. Mr. Greenspun was prized as a friend, feared as an enemy and took to heart his mother's advice: "When you let people walk over you, you might as well be dead."

This documentary is fascinating and well-sourced but a bit too reverential (the subject's granddaughter was an executive producer). It's also odd to watch Mr. Greenspun speak for himself in filmed interviews and then hear actor Anthony Hopkins read Greenspun's words. If only Mr. Hopkins sounded more like a tough guy from Brooklyn or hadn't played Nixon on screen, he might be a better movie match.

2 1/2 stars = Average
Ratings explained

The title also is the name of a young woman with Down syndrome who lives in Buenos Aires with her widowed mother, Dora, above the family's stationery shop in a traditionally Jewish neighborhood.

The opening scenes make it apparent that the two are happily entrenched in a routine, from stretching their arms across their twin beds at night to Dora making Anita's breakfast each morning and prompting her through her bath at night.

One afternoon, before Dora (Norma Aleandro) runs an errand, she assures Anita, "Mummy will be right back." But she is caught in a bomb blast that claims dozens of lives and blows out the windows of the shop.

Anita is knocked off a ladder, hustled onto a bus and taken to a hospital for medical treatment, but she wanders away and out into the streets. She literally depends on the kindness of strangers, not realizing her brother is desperately looking for her and their mother.

Anita cannot remember her last name, and her temporary hosts don't want to call the police, for fear she will end up in a mental hospital. A single call, of course, and there's no movie.

How people treat Anita and what they confide says as much about them as her. "You've got this peace in you, it's so special," an alcoholic photographer says. "You fell down the ladder and my life fell to pieces."

If seven dozen people died in a bomb blast, you would assume it would be all over the news, along with the search for the missing and dead. Anita, of course, falls in with people mainly off the grid.

Like Anita, we long for more time with her mother, played by Norma Aleandro ("Gaby: A True Story," "The Official Story"). As Anita, Alejandra Manzo does a commendable job conveying the simplicity, stubbornness and resilience of a young woman who finds family and friendship in the most unlikely of places and faces.

In Spanish with English subtitles.

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