Join us for a powerful evening of film, music, and performance under the stars.

Experience the New York Premiere of Maurice’s Bar, a beautifully crafted animated short that delves into themes of identity, memory, and the search for acceptance. This moving story offers a heartfelt reflection on the LGBTQ+ experience through a unique cultural lens.

Film Screening: Maurice’s Bar (New York Premiere)
In 1942, on a train to nowhere, a former drag queen recalls a night from her past in one of Paris’ first queer bars. Whispers from former patrons evoke memories of this mythic space and its enigmatic Jewish-Algerian owner. “A strikingly composed and visually moody short” (Chicago Film Festival), Maurice’s Bar is a beautifully animated film exploring themes of identity, memory, and the search for belonging through a unique cultural lens.

Live Rooftop Concert & Performance

Conclude the evening under the stars with an intimate rooftop concert by Chanan Ben Simon, whose music celebrates love, freedom, and the courage to live one’s truth. We will also be joined by Florence Nasar— Syrian Jewish dancer, choreographer and artistic director. Let powerful melodies and open skies inspire joy, connection, and pride. Sephardic refreshments will be served.

About the artists:

Born in Jerusalem to a Moroccan Jewish family, Chanan Ben Simon is a vocalist, composer and a multimedia artist. Chanan’s work combines voice, sound, visuals, installation art and new media. His works include TV operas (‘The Weather Channel’ and ’Fire Heart’), multimedia stage pieces (‘The Unvoiced’, ‘Telepresence’), recorded music (‘Toy Store’ and ‘Party Tears’) and installations. He also performs music by contemporary composers, as well as releases pop music as his alter ego ‘Ben Simone’.

Israeli composer Guy Barash commonly applies electronic processing to acoustic instruments and employs microtonality to create psychologically disorienting atmospheres. His series of compositions for solo instruments and real-time digital signal processing, “Talkback,” was hailed as being “at once divine, serene and haunting” (The Queens Chronicle). Developing innovative, multidisciplinary projects, Barash often collaborates with an array of poets, video-artists, musicians and choreographers.

LEAVES, by Florenece Nasar, is an immersive performance about memory in movement—traditions passed down by women, gestures carried across exiles and migrations. It explores what remains within us and what we leave behind when language and homelands are lost. The dancer also asks the audience to consider movement not just across lands, but the exiles within us–what we keep or leave behind, where we seek and find home.