The Toronto Jewish Film Festival, a showcase of movies “heavy on Jewish content,” has created an online tool for calculating “J-DAR.”
According to a statement, J-DAR refers to how “Jewish” popular Hollywood films are. DDB Canada creative director David Ross, whose agency developed the tool, said it’s a fun means of educating people on the important contributions that Jewish actors, writers, directors and producers have made to film. “J-DAR was designed to highlight the fact that many of the festival’s films are no more Jewish than what you’d see in Hollywood,” he said.
The site is also meant to correct the misconception that the annual festival is exclusively for Jewish people. “People think many of the films are religious in focus and geared only toward a Jewish audience,” Ross said.
As for how that Jewish-ness is calculated. Ross said a meticulous formula was employed. DDB Canada consulted with a statistician and considered criteria such as the people who made the films, the content and the setting.
As an example, Spring Breakers, a controversial new film about four girls on vacation in Florida, is 48% Jewish (its lead actor James Franco, writer/director and producer are Jewish, according to J-DAR). Another popular film, Silver Linings Playbook, rated as 35% Jewish thanks to its composer, producer and actor Bonnie Aarons.
Users can type a film title into the J-DAR database to learn its score. They are then linked to recommendations for similar movies also playing at the festival, alongside a direct link to purchase tickets.
