Eric Braeden, star of television's No. 1 soap opera, "The Young and the Restless," will appear in person at the third annual Ventura County Jewish Film Festival scheduled for April 27 through 30.

Braeden, who's played Victor Newman in the CBS series for more than 25 years, is president and founder of the GermanAmerican Cultural Society and is active in German-Israel diplomacy to encourage GermanJewish dialogue.

He and history professor Michael Meyer of Cal State Northridge will participate in a question-and-answer session following the April 29 screening of "Go for Zucker." The film is the first Jewish comedy made in Germany since World War II and deals with two brothers from a Jewish family trying to reconcile after growing up on different sides of the Berlin wall.

The festival opens Thurs., April 27 with "Everything is Illuminated," written and directed by actor Liev Schreiber.

The film is an adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's bestselling memoir about his journey to Ukraine to find the person who saved his grandfather from certain death during World War II.

The actors include Elijah Wood as Safran Foer, and neophyte Ukrainian actor Eugene Hutz, who portrays the young American's guide.

On Sun., April 30, the documentary "A Cantor's Tale" will be screened at 10 a.m. at Temple Beth Torah, 7620 Foothill Road, Ventura. The film traces the history of the cantors' art as seen through the eyes of Brooklynborn Cantor Jacob "Jackie" Mendelson. The documentary features comic Jackie Mason and defense attorney and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.

Following the film will be a question-and-answer session with Temple Beth Torah's Cantor Michael Anatole, Cantor Yonah Kliger of Temple Em-manuel in Beverly Hills, andRabbi Jerry Hanig of Congregation Am HaYam in Ventura.

At 7 p.m. on Sun., April 30 the festival ends with the French film "Live and Become," a drama chronicling 20 years in the life of a young Ethiopian migr who is airlifted out of a Sudanese refugee camp to a new home in Israel. He struggles to find his place in a new world and is confronted with the age-old question of "Who is a Jew?" The movie has won several Israeli Oscars.

A special guest at the screening will be Micha Feldmann, the Israeli diplomat who was one of the major architects of the l991 "Operation Solomon" that airlifted more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jewish refugees to Israel.

Except for the Sunday morning documentary, all the movies will be screened at the Regency Buenaventura Theatre, 1440 Eastman Ave., Ventura.

Tickets are available by calling Temple Beth Torah at (805) 647-4181. Major sponsors of the festival include Temple Beth Torah, Jewish Federation of Ventura County, Herzog Wine Cellars and Fern and Jerry Filzen.

For more details, call Ivor Davis at (805) 648-3397 or visit www.vcjff.org.