The 16th annual Ann Arbor Jewish Film Festival opens Sunday, May 7, and runs through Thursday, May 11. Sponsored by the Jewish Community Center of Greater Ann Arbor, planning for the five-day festival began in November 2016.

“We have a committee of 23 individuals who help decide on the films,” said Karen Freedland, the JCC’s cultural arts director and festival coordinator. “We start with a list of over 95 titles and whittle it down to 40 films we think look the strongest. From there we try to get from the distributors as many of those 40 films to screen, and we narrow it down to the 13 we have chosen.”

Save for one, the films in this year’s festival are very recent, most from 2016. "We try to get the most current releases available and that sets us apart from some other festivals who will show films that we had shown the year before," Freedland said. "We are lucky that we work with Brian Hunter from the Michigan Theater. He helps us source out some of the latest films that are geared for a Jewish film festival.”

Peter Mulvey is a monster guitar player, able to coax supple, intricate, highly ornamented melodies out of his acoustic six-string as well as spiky, serrated harmonies. He’s equally adept at pinging out soft, atmospheric harmonics or pounding rapid, rhythmic riffs and percussive, danceable grooves that make you crane to see where the bass player and drummer are hiding. His guitar does not merely accompany his singing, it also dialogs with it.

And then there’s his way with words.