| Year shown | Title | Description | Length In Minutes | Director | Country | Language | Shown In |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | E=MC3 | In this surrealist dreamscape based on actual events, "E=MC³" is Victor Stabin's animated tale of Albert Einstein's invention and patenting of the perpetual motion refrigerator that brings peace to the Middle East. The animation combines fantastic imagery with tongue-in-cheek storytelling and plenty of schtick. This story had its genesis in the strange but true account of Einstein's work on a highly efficient refrigerator designed while in Berlin circa 1920s. This remarkable story combines Stabin's long-running love affair with public radio with a narrative that unfolds through an NPR-style radio interview - an interview conducted by a talking clam voiced by Dave Davies of NPR's "Fresh Air." | 12 | Victor Stabin | USA | English | Festival |
| 2021 | #uploading_holocaust | Thousands of young Israelis join "the journey to Poland" each year to learn about the Holocaust. Looking into the journey through the videos they upload on YouTube reveals a moving and troubling image about the way the collective memory is formed in the web age. | 75 | Udi Nir & Sagi Bornstein | Israel, Germany, Austria | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | 200 Meters | Mustafa and his wife Salwa live 200 meters apart in villages separated by the wall. One day he gets a call every parent dreads: his son has had an accident. Rushing to cross the Israeli checkpoint, Mustafa is denied on a technicality. But a father's love won't give up and he will do anything to reach his son. A 200 meter distance becomes a 200 kilometer odyssey, as Mustafa, left with no choice, attempts to smuggle himself to the other side of the wall. | 96 | Ameen Nayfeh | Italy, Jordan, Palestinian Territories, Qatar, Sweden | Arabic, English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | 40 Chess Boards | In Argentina in 1939, while the World Chess Championship was taking place, breaking news shocked the participants: Germany had invaded Poland and World War II had erupted. Many great masters were stranded away from their home countries and began to organize exhibitions in order to make their living. One of them searched for something else. | 18 | Alfonso Gastiaburo | Argentina | Spanish, German | Festival |
| 2021 | 40 Nickels | "40 Nickels" tell the story of a Jewish immigrant boy growing up in the Great Depression whose love for aviation helps him overcome his family's traumatic past as pogrom survivors. | 27 | Yasmin Gorenberg | USA | English | Festival |
| 2021 | A Common Goal | Almost half the players on the Israeli National Soccer Team are Muslim, including the captain. The team's diverse group of players causes controversy, especially during an important European tournament, most of it provoked by racist fans and the media. The players have their loyalty questioned by all sides while trying to guide Israel's national team through the year's biggest international challenge. | 52 | Shuki Guzik | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | A Father's Kaddish | A Father's Kaddish is a documentary film which tells the story of how Steven Branfman used the art of pottery to help him work through his grief after the death of his 23-year old son. The film is a potent and moving journey through the universal experience of loss, mourning and rebuilding a life. | 31 | Jen Kaplan | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff | A mystical meta-musical about the greatest financial fraud in history. A hybrid of memoir docudrama and narrative fantasy, A KADDISH FOR BERNIE MADOFF tells the story of Madoff and the system that allowed him to function for decades , through the eyes of artist Alicia Jo Rabins, who fuels her growing obsession with interviews turned musical numbers, ancient spiritual texts, fevered fantasies of synchronized swimmers and the unique perspective of watching the global financial crash of 2008 unfold from her 9th floor studio in an abandoned office building on Wall Street. Fueled by her growing obsession, real-life interviews transform into music videos, ancient spiritual texts become fevered fantasies of synchronized swimming, and a vivid, vulnerable work of art is born from the unique perspective of an artist watching the global financial collapse up close. | 75 | Alicia J. Rose | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | A Starry Sky Above the Roman Ghetto | In her Roman attic, a girl finds an old picture of the Jewish child Sarah Cohen whose family has been killed by the Nazis in World War II. She will track down her past...The past interlaces with the pre- sent: the discovery of a mysterious yellowed photograph depicting a little girl will lead Christian and Jewish students to search for the truth. They undertake a journey through the memory of a painful past that is hard to forget, such as the memory of the raid on the Jewish ghetto of Rome. | 100 | Giulio Base | Italy | Italian | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | After Munich | The world watched live on television as the Palestinian terrorist group Black September stormed the Israeli athletes' quarters at the 1972 Munich Olympics, taking eleven hostages that they would later kill. Four women: an athlete, a widow, and two undercover agents, bore sight to the tragedy, changing their lives forever. | 70 | Francine Zuckerman | Canada, Germany, Israel, Sweden, United Kingdom | English | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | Angelica | Boris Schatz left two of Israel's most important institutions , The Israel Museum and The Bezalel Art Academy , as his legacy, along with an endless collection of important, seminal works of art. His life ended while gathering donations for Bezalel, then on the brink of bankruptcy, without ever reaping the fruits of his labor. Another chapter of his biography seems to have disappeared , the kidnapping of his daughter, Angelica, by her mother who had fallen in love with one of his students. This was an event that became crucial to the Israeli art world, but also to Angelica's life. The discovery of a chain of letters in the Zionist Archives, along with a roll of paintings in an attic, send the film's director, Angelica's great-grandson, to investigate Boris and Angelica's tragic relationship, forever baring the revengeful seal of her father and his new family. | 75 | Dan Peer | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | Asia | Asia, a Russian immigrant, lives with her daughter and mother in Jerusalem. She works long shifts as a nurse in a hospital. A Filipina carer helps look after her mum who is beginning to show symptoms of dementia. Asia has a tense relationship with Vika, her rebellious teenage daughter who is battling a neurologically degenerative illness. In her off-time, Asia seeks relief through quick interludes with a married colleague or by flirting with strangers at singles bars. As Vika's condition deteriorates, Asia is forced to engage with her daughter. She hires Gabi, an Israeli Arab nurse-aid to help look after Vika when she is at work. | 85 | Ruthy Pribar | Israel | Hebrew, Russian | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | Autonomies | Dystopian drama about Israel being split by a civil war into secular and religious states divided by a wall. 5 part mini series. | 240 | Yehonatan Indursky | Israel | Yiddish, Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | Beefies | A man tries to make his recently deceased mother's Passover recipe for a pandemic Seder, but discovers he must reconnect with his estranged brother to honor their mom by doing the only thing that makes sense: Cooking. Beefies is a comedic short about family, connection, and trying not to burn down your kitchen. | 10 | Adam Lebowitz-Lockard | USA | English | Festival |
| 2021 | Call Me Back: The Uncommon Wisdom of Yvette Slosch | Infamous New York City talent agent, Yvette Slosch (Linda Lavin), is determined to make a star out of her newest client, jazz violinist, Aaron Weinstein. She refuses to let Aaron's lack of name recognition, jazz's dwindling fan base, or the 2020 global pandemic get in her way. As the pandemic rages, Yvette's schemes to keep Aaron's career afloat become increasingly convoluted, testing her abilities as an agent and her friendship with Aaron. | 20 | Aaron Weinstein | USA | English | Festival |
| 2021 | Date.Interrupted | In times of Covid, a first online date turns into an unintended threesome | 5 | Noa Osheroff | USA | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | Dirty Tricks | Hold on to your spades and hearts, the game of bridge is about to shock you. It is the most popular card game in the world, but competitive bridge is as far from a retirement home tournament as you can imagine. With cut-throat competition, million-dollar endorsements and celebrity-like followings, bridge is now an international sport. So when the world's best player, child prodigy Lotan Fisher from Israel, is accused of cheating by none other than his nemesis and former teammate Boye Brogeland of Norway, a scandal of dirty tricks ensues. Is this simply a case of sour grapes or is high-end bridge a complete sham? Fashion icon Isaac Mizrahi, expert bridge strategists and even top criminal scientists all weigh in on what could be the most absurdly outrageous fall from grace in the game's history. Forget what you thought you knew about your grandmother's bridge game. | 100 | Daniel Sivan | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | Disappearing Act | Xander the Magnificent recently booked the Feldstein kid's Zoom Bar mitzvah and is psyched to practice his virtual magic act for his mom, Sabrina. Unfortunately, she has her own sleight-of-hand trick to perform. | 5 | Billy Kent | USA | English | Festival |
| 2021 | Dying Doesn't Feel Like What I'm Doing | Rachel Cowan was a civil rights activist, community organizer, the first female Jew by choice ordained as a Rabbi, a beloved and influential mindfulness teacher, a grandmother, a wise elder. And then she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. | 60 | Paula Weiman-Kelman | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | Family Photo | "Family photo" is a documentary about the director's family and takes place in contemporary Warsaw, Paris, and in Tel Aviv. The film will become a part of a permanent exhibition at POLIN Museum next year. | 7 | Jakub Duszyński | Warsaw, Paris, Tel Aviv | Polish | Festival |
| 2021 | Fig Tree | 16 year old Jewish Mina is trying to navigate between a surreal routine dictated by the civil war in Ethiopia and her last days of youth with her Christian boyfriend Eli. When she discovers that her family is planning to immigrate to Israel and escape the war, she weaves an alternate plan in order to save Eli. But in times of war, plans tend to go wrong. Marsha's coming of age film debut film is based on her childhood memories of a civil-war-torn Ethiopia. | 93 | Aalam-Warqe Davidian | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | Here We Are | Aharon has devoted his life to raising his autistic son Uri. But now, it might be time for Uri to live in a specialized home. Knowing that Uri is not ready for this separation, Aharon decides to run away with him. | 95 | Nir Bergman | Israel/Italy | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | Hester Street | In 1896, Russian Jew Yankel Bogovnik has been in the United States for three years and settled where many from his background have: Hester Street, on New York City's Lower East Side. He has assimilated to American life - learned English, anglicized his name to Jake, and shaved off his beard. He is working at a $12/week job as a seamster, saving up his earnings so he can bring his wife Gitl and their son Yossele to America from Russia. Although he has fallen in love with dancer Mamie Fein, he's overjoyed when he learns that Gitl and Yossele are coming to America. His happiness at their arrival is damped when he sees that Gitl isn't "American-looking" like Mamie and is having trouble assimilating as quickly as he would like. Except to Mamie, he tries to show a public facade that everything is fine at home with Gitl. But can their marriage survive these differences, and if not, will Gitl be able to manage in this new land where she has little support? | 90 | Joan Micklin Silver | USA | Yiddish, English | Festival |
| 2021 | Hummus! (The Movie) | An eclectic, touching film about Hummus, the delicious super food sweeping across America. Secret recipes, a Guinness World Record and the power of Hummus to bring Muslims, Christians and Jews together - in the Middle East, America and around the world. | 59 | Oren Rosenfeld | United States, Israel | English, Arabic, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | I Got Your Letter, John Bauer | A middle aged Jewish man receives a letter from his past which opens up deep wounds and finds foregiveness in a chance encounter. | 12 | Noel Brady | Ireland | English | Festival |
| 2021 | I Want to Make a Film About Women | "I Want to Make a Film About Women" is a speculative love letter to Russian constructivist women. The new Soviet Union of the 1920s championed equality for women and great innovation in the creative arts. Until it didn't. Looking back at that time, history remembers the men who were celebrated and then shut down. But women were there, too, and they were influential, powerful and brilliant. "I Want to Make a Film About Women" gazes in to a creative communal kitchen and watches these women transform it into a workshop, then a stage set, then a film, all the while juggling noisy men and the wolves of history. It imagines what the revolutionary women artists of the 1920s said, what they did, and what they might have created had it not been for Stalin's suppression. | 12 | Karen Pearlman | Australia | English, Russian | Festival |
| 2021 | Image of Victory | During the 2014 war in Gaza, Uri, an Israeli soldier, is shot and wounded. In the hospital, he finds himself unwillingly turned into a war hero. This private family hardship turned public event offers an insider's look into Israeli society and how war, both a reality and a state of mind, is shaping it as a nation. | 29 | Adi Mishnayot | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | L'Inspection (The Inspection) | Julia, an experienced history teacher in a rather quiet high school, faces a school inspector. He wants to talk to her. But what about, exactly? Her heated debates with the principal? The freedom she takes with the school program? Or the way she teaches the Shoah? | 16 | Carlonline Brami and Frederic Bas | France | French | Festival |
| 2021 | Labyrinth of Peace | High-budget portrait of an industrial family dynasty. Inspired by true yet little-known events in post-WWII "neutral" Switzerland. 6-part mini series. | 360 | Mike Schaerer | Switzerland | Swiss German | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | Last Words | Ladino, the old Sephardic Jewish language, is in great danger of being extinct. In Serbia, there are only two surviving native speakers: two old ladies. They fight to save their language. | 8 | Laurent Rouy | Serbia | Serbian, Ladino | Festival |
| 2021 | Latter Day Jew | Latter Day Jew follows H. Alan Scott, a gay former Mormon/converted Jew/cancer survivor/writer-comedian, as he finds his spiritual path and prepares for his Bar Mitzvah. | 85 | Aliza Rosen | United States | English | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | Leona | A young Jewish woman from Mexico City finds herself torn between her family and her forbidden love with a non-Jewish man. | 95 | Isaac Cherem | Mexico | Spanish | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | Long Distance | Rachel is losing her sight to the point she can't even manage doing the smallest daily functions, like dialing the phone. She opens her door to strangers passing by, on a tiny but significant journey to reach out to her daughter on the other side of the world. | 20 | Or Sinai | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | Majesty and Tenderness | "Majesty and Tenderness: The Art of Maurice Schmidt" is a rare glimpse into the genius of a very unusual Texas artist who finds the majesty of beauty in everything. His artistic vision of over seventy prolific years peers through a unique lens of Judaism, claiming that over decades of study, he has become "one with the Torah." As an articulate academician, Maurice Schmidt candidly describes how his spiritual interpretations become a congruent mastery of beautiful craftsmanship and pure visceral expression that plays out seamlessly through his powerfully dynamic portrayals of daily life, agricultural landscapes, and religious subjects. | 28 | Vanessa Reiser | USA | English | Festival |
| 2021 | Marry Me However | This film tells the stories of LGBT men and women who, for religious reasons, decided to marry against their own sexual orientation in order to comply with Torah laws and to be accepted into their families and religious communities. Some shared their secret with their partners, some kept it hidden, and some lied even to themselves. After their divorces, they confront the conflicts they repressed: their faith and religious laws; children, family and community; exposure to society and search for a partner. The characters experience a journey of self-acceptance and social activism as they try to affect a change in their religious environments. The film also follows the women who married and divorced homosexual partners, as well as rabbis and psychologists who seek a solution to an unsolvable conflict. | 63 | Mordechai Vardi | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | Mazel Tov | At a banquet hall in Israel, at the height of a war, Adam Weizmann's Bar Mitzvah party turns into a glorious catastrophe. On the cusp of manhood, and on the verge of a nervous breakdown,”Adam takes a crucial step toward coming to terms with his sexuality. | 25 | Eli Zuzovsky | Israel, USA | Hebrew, French, Arabic, English | Festival |
| 2021 | Miss | NORTH LONDON, 2020. Photographer Olive returns from work to find her new flatmate, Nina, rummaging through her room. Unbeknownst to Olive, Nina is about to miss the deadline to join a beauty pageant dedicated to Adolf Hitler and is in desperate need for photos for the application. She begs Olive to help her take them. Although Olive is bemused by her new flatmate's erratic behavior, she feels sorry for her and relents. As Nina's behavior becomes increasingly bizarre, Olive becomes suspicious. When the opportunity arises, Olive decides to investigate. Sneaking into Nina's room, she discovers the truth behind the beauty pageant - discovering that the pageant is not your regular beauty pageant, but instead, something called Miss Hitler. | 12 | Ella Marks & Yael Roth | UK | English | Festival |
| 2021 | Moshe Sneh: The Man Who Never Gave Up | Moshe Sneh, Defense Minister and Chief of Staff of State in-the-making, the man who was in command of bringing thousands of Jews,Holocaust survivors, from Europe to Israel in spite of British Mandate opposition. The film focuses on SS Exodus, an operation he initiated, which raised funds for the ship. | 14 | Amir Har-Gil | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | Neighbours (Nachbarn) | With a fine sense of humor and satire, the film tells of a childhood, which, between dictatorship and dark drama, also has its light moments. | 124 | Mano Khalil | Switzerland | Kurdish, Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish | Festival |
| 2021 | On Broadway | An all-star cast tells the inside story of the Broadway theater and how it came back from the brink thanks to innovative work, a new attention to inclusion, and a sometimes uneasy balance between art and commerce. Legends of the stage and screen, including Helen Mirren, Christine Baranski, August Wilson, James Corden, Alec Baldwin, John Lithgow, Viola Davis, Hugh Jackman, and Ian McKellen, take us behind the scenes of Broadway's most groundbreaking and beloved shows, from "A Chorus Line" to "Hamilton." Iconic performances by Lin Manuel Miranda, Patti Lupone, Bernadette Peters, James Earl Jones, and Mandy Patinkin lead the way on a hurly-burly ride through Times Square, once again the main street of American show business in ON BROADWAY, directed by Academy-Award nominee Oren Jacoby. | 88 | Gabriel Lichtmann | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | Out of Play | Bar (12), a longtime member of the boys' clique and the class's soccer team, is forced to re-earn her place in the team's lineup. While asserting her place, she realizes that a deeper issue is at stake. | 20 | Romi Menachem | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | Persian Lessons | Gilles, a young Jewish Belgian man, is arrested in 1942 by the SS and sent to a concentration camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but then Gilles is assigned a seemingly untenable mission: to teach Persian to Koch, the officer in charge of the camp's kitchen, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Persia (Iran) once the war is over. Gilles finds himself having to invent a language he doesn't know, word by word. As the unusual relationship between the two men begins to incite jealousy and suspicion, Gilles becomes acutely aware that one false move could expose his swindle. | 127 | Vadim Perelman | Germany, Belarus, France | French, German, Farsi | Festival |
| 2021 | Plan A | PLAN A is based on the incredible true story of the "Avengers." A group of Jewish vigilantes, men and woman, who after surviving the holocaust are vowing to avenge the death of their people ,"an eye for any eye, a tooth for a tooth." | 109 | Doron Paz, Yoav Paz | Germany, Israel | English | Festival |
| 2021 | Pops | How would you react if your father's last wish was a little bit out there? For siblings Roz and Elli, it becomes a battleground for who will determine their pop's final journey. Starring Samantha Spiro (Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon, Sex Education) and Nigel Lindsay (Victoria, Safe, Four Lions), Pops is a Jewish comedy drama about family, religion and how we choose to honour a life well-lived. | 19 | Lewis Rose | UK, France | English | Festival |
| 2021 | Rachel's Goodwill | The "Taliban Women" is the nickname for a growing band of ultra-orthodox women in Israel who choose to wear a hooded garment similar to a Muslim burka. From behind her veil, Rachel defies accepted definitions of gender, religion, and freedom. Well made, but someone odd movie with no clear message. | 10 | Yochay Rosenberg | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | Round Three | Ofira is a newly retired art teacher, who, for the first time in her life, will put herself outside her comfortable routine. She decides to revive an old dream - becoming a painter. Ofira turns to Hizki, her old friend from art school, who's a curator at a successful gallery. Uncertain, and with little to no support from her husband, Ofira stands in front of the white canvas, not only to paint her first painting in 40 years, but also the rest of her life. | 20 | Shahar Shamay | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | Shamir, His Way | The film reveals for the first time the extraordinary life of Yitzhak Shamir, former Prime Minister of Israel and a groundbreaking leader who has impacted the Middle East for decades. | 60 | Erez Friedman & Igal Lerner | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | Sin La Habana | Leonardo, a classical dancer, and Sara, a lawyer, are young, beautiful and in love. They're also ambitious, but their dreams are thwarted by Cuba's closed borders. Their ticket to a brighter future could well lie with Nasim, a tourist with a taste for the exotic. | 95 | Kaveh Nabatian | Canada, Cuba | Spanish, Farsi | Festival |
| 2021 | Space Torah | In 1996, NASA astronaut Dr. Jeff Hoffman brought a small Torah scroll on board Space Shuttle Columbia. On Shabbat, while orbiting Earth, he read from the book of Genesis, "In the beginning God created heaven and the earth." This is a story about inspiration, communities, and a man's journey. A story of how family, educators, scientific and religious communities achieve great things and bring our identity to new realms. | 25 | Rob Cooper | USA | English | Festival |
| 2021 | Syndrome K | Syndrome K is the true story about a highly contagious, highly fictitious disease created by three Roman Catholic doctors during the Holocaust to hide Jews in a Vatican-affiliated hospital. | 80 | Stephen Edwards | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | Tahara | "Tahara" is a queer, coming-of-age drama about an anxious teen girl who is manipulated into a romantic encounter with her best friend during the funeral service of their former Hebrew school classmate. Tahara's authenticity is built on a foundation of diversity and inclusivity, both in front of and behind the camera, that is representative of the world most of us live in. | 77 | Olivia Peace | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | Taking Steps | Stav, newly married, is about to fly abroad with her husband for the mountain trek of his dreams. When she breaks her foot a week before they are due to leave, the couple must settle for a much less glamorous trip. But for Stav at least, it's a journey that will allow her to examine for the first time ever, her needs and desires within the relationship. | 22 | Liel Sharon Gur | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | Tale of Life | Their healer, Absalom, cannot do anything about it, science is at a cul-de-sac. When the half-orphaned Rifka also catches the disease, the villagers suddenly feel they have to do something for the child and for themselves. They turn towards faith and God for help. Can faith help? Is it possible to deviate from dogmas and bargain with the Creator, and is the Creator willing to bargain with them? | 17 | David Bodrogi | Hungary | Hungarian, Hebrew prayers | Festival |
| 2021 | Tangled Up in Jews | The year 5781 is off to a rough start for Xander Hazlewood, as his mother and the family rabbi have some news that won't make Xander's Shabbat challah go down very well. | 6 | Billy Kent | USA | English | Festival |
| 2021 | The Adventures of Saul Bellow | For most of his adult life, Saul Bellow was the most acclaimed novelist in America and winner of, among other awards, the Nobel Prize in Literature, three National Book Awards, and the Pulitzer Prize. "The Adventures of Saul Bellow" is the first-ever documentary film on Saul Bellow, the man described by critic James Wood as the "greatest of American prose stylists in the 20th century." Marking the centennial of his birth and the tenth anniversary of his death, this film features original interviews with Bellow's family, close friends, and writers inspired by him, including Martin Amis and A. B. Yehoshua. Bellow's revolutionary impact on American literature is examined, as are his many identities as a writer, polemicist, "serial husband," father, Chicagoan, Jew, and American. The film highlights a previously underestimated element of Bellow's life and work: his humor. Bellow's satire and scalding wit reflected not only his joy and commitment to life, but also his belief that the world was marked by disorder and unruliness. | 85 | Asaf Galay | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | The Angel of History | A border in Europe. A painting by Paul Klee. A poem by Walter Benjamin. A film about borders, escape and migration. About yesterday and today, and how difficult it is to recognize one behind the other. | 10 | Eric Esser | Germany | German | Festival |
| 2021 | The Art of Waiting | Liran and Tali, a couple in their thirties who dream of having a child together, are one day told that they will have to undergo fertility treatments. What seems simple at first turns out to be very complex. | 91 | Erez Tadmor | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | The Chop | "The Chop" is a comedy about Yossi, a charismatic Kosher butcher who loses his job, cannot find work at other Kosher butchers, and therefore decides to pretend to be Muslim in order to get work at a Halal butcher. | 17 | Lewis Rose | UK | English | Festival |
| 2021 | The Dead of Jaffa | Three children from the West Bank are smuggled into Israel, arriving at the doorstep of George and Rita's house in Jaffa. Their mother is dead, and their father has been sentenced for life. As Israeli Palestinians, George is afraid that hiding illegal aliens will endanger Rita and himself, while Rita believes the arrival of these children could give meaning to her life. Nearby, a foreign film is being shot. Jerry, an English director, is making a movie about his parents' love affair in 1947, when they served in the British army in Palestine. George is invited to play a part. When the two stories intertwine, tensions erupt. | 96 | Ram Loevy | Israel | Arabic, English, Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | The Forgotten Ones | A young Israeli woman of Yugloslav heritage researches the Holocaust in Yugoslavia, including the parts played by the various nationalities in Yugoslavia and the role of her Muslim great-grandfather who saved Jews and was nominated as a righteous gentile. | Nitza Gonen | Israel | Festival | ||
| 2021 | The Mohel | Few rights in Judaism are as important as the Brit Milah - the circumcision. James and his wife Lola, a recent convert, live in a community without any Mohels, and after celebrating the birth of their first son have to fly one in to perform the ceremony. | 14 | Charles Wahl | Canada | English | Festival |
| 2021 | The Musicians | The story of Romek Cudakowski, a musician who, risking his life, freed from the ghetto his biggest competitor, an exceptional violinist Szymon Akerman. The men had conflicted before the war broke out because Romek thought that Akerman would take away from him the most lucrative odd jobs. After escaping from the ghetto, Szymon plays in Romek's orchestra in the brothel, whose usual guests are Germans. The better the men get to know each other, the more the differences that once divided them fade away. | 90 | Anna Kazejak | Poland | Polish | Festival |
| 2021 | The New Jew | A funny and insightful four-episode TV documentary series showcasing the cultural and political influence of the Jewish community in the United States, the variety of alternative models it offers for living a rich Jewish life, and the rifts in relations between them and the State of Israel , presented by Guri Alfi, one of Israel's most popular comedians. The series was produced for the Public Broadcasting Corporation in Israel. | 180 | Daniel Adar | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | The Red Orchestra | The Red Orchestra, a most important resistance net in Nazi-Germany, stole Hitler's plans for the invasion of the Soviet Union | 120 | Carl-Ludwig Rettinger | Germany | German and English | Festival |
| 2021 | The Un-Word (Das Unwort) | After a Jewish boy at a Berlin school becomes the victim of anti-Semitic bullying, a confrontation erupts between the overtaxed parents, teachers, the headmaster, and the school inspectorate. A film about everyday violence, prejudice, exclusion, and the challenge of dealing with it. | 85 | Leo Khasin | Germany | German | Festival |
| 2021 | The United States of Fashion Designer Elie Tahari | Fashion Designer and Mogul Elie Tahari has been living the American Dream for more than 50 years. He came from Israel to New York in 1971 with less than $100 in his pocket, slept on benches in Central Park, and went on to build a billion-dollar fashion empire. "The United States of Elie Tahari," filmed in 2020, is the first documentary ever produced about his life. The documentary tells the life of Elie Tahari from his birth and origins (born in Israel with Iranian parents) throughout all of his achievements and legacy. Part of the documentary is also dedicated to Tahari's creative process and endurance in the fashion world. Several fashion personalities, Instagram influencer Julia Kananovich, artist Lynna Davis, Disco music, models, Studio 54 and more, are part of this documentary. | 65 | David Serero | USA | English | Festival |
| 2021 | Tiger Within | An LA Holocaust survivor (Ed Asner) connects with an indigent punk teenage girl and shows her kindness, ulimtately guiding her back into society. | 98 | Rafal Zielinski | USA | English | Festival |
| 2021 | Tikkun Olam | Short fiction film about an eight-year-old boy who tries to befriend a homeless veteran in Washington, D.C. - a city which actually has the highest homelessness rate in all of America. | 11 | Bob Ahmed | USA | English | Festival |
| 2021 | Two | Omer and Bar are two women deeply in love when they decide to start a family through IVF treatments. Their journey begins full of excitement and support, but after many unsuccessful insemination attempts, their desperation grows, and the women are forced to face the conflicts in their relationship. | 81 | Astar Elkayam | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | What If? | Can a leader succeed in influencing the world? Or is he a human being like anyone else, only a grain of sand tossed to the waves of history with no ability to affect it? Tolstoy pondered this question in War and Peace. 78-year-old Ehud Barak is the controversial former prime minister, decorated and criticized commander on the battlefield, and one of the leading figures of the Zionist movement. He is also the initiator of Israel"s assassination plan of Yasser Arafat. In this remarkable film, Barak observes with disillusioned clarity his own history and the history of the State Israel. Twenty years after the failure of the 2000 Camp David summit, Barak looks back on his life and analyzes the Israeli reality with a critical eye. Respected craft-master filmmaker RAL TAL (THE MUSEUM, THE GARDEN OF EDEN, CHILDREN OF THE SUN), known for his narrative fiction style in his formalist approach to documentary cinema, delivers an outstanding philosophical essay, and proposes a deep cinematic reflection on history and decision-making, while trying to figure it all out , "What if?" | 85 | Ran Tal | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit | Based on the semi-autobiographical book by Judith Kerr, the story of a Jewish family that flees Berlin on the evening of the election in 1933. They initially settle in Zurich before moving to Paris, and finally, to London. | 119 | Caroline Link | Germany, Switzerland | German | AJFF365 |
| 2021 | Woman of Valor | Following the loss of his son in childbirth, a religious student longs to restart his family, but in order to reconnect with his distraught wife, he will first have to acknowledge his own hidden pain. A journey of self-discovery and a study into how grief can deeply affect a relationship. | 15 | Dominic Davey | UK | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2021 | Xueta Island | "Xueta Island" explores the fascinating legacy of the Xuetas (pronounced Chuetas): a unique group of families on the Balearic island of Majorca who are believed to be descendants of the island's Inquisition-era Jewish population. Though they were practicing Catholics, the Chuetas were discriminated against until the middle of the 20th century, always forced to marry within their subgroup population. Our story follows Dani Rotstein, a Jewish-American expat who moved to the island recently and quickly became fascinated with the story. Rotstein currently works as a social activist and filmmaker on the island, where he uses discoveries from his ongoing investigation to help rebuild community. | 63 | Dani Rotstein, Felipe Wolokita and Ofer Laszewicki | Spain, USA | English, Catalan, Spanish | Festival |
| 2020 | 1945 | In this astonishingly haunting film, deep undercurrents run beneath the simple surface in a quaint village that's ultimately forced to face up to its "ill-gotten gains" from the Second World War. On a sweltering August day in 1945, villagers prepare for the wedding of the town clerk's son. Meanwhile, two Orthodox Jews arrive at the village train station with mysterious boxes labeled "fragrances." The town clerk fears the men may be heirs of the village's deported Jews and expects them to demand their illegally acquired property back, originally lost during the Second World War. Other villagers are afraid more survivors will come, posing a threat to the property and possessions they have claimed as their own. | 91 | Ferenc Torok | Hungary | Hungarian | Festival |
| 2020 | 100 Faces | "100 Faces" is a true celebration of the diversity of the Jewish people. The film features 100 British Jews, one born in every year between 1917 and 2018. | 14 | Benjamin Till | UK | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | 15 Years | Yoav's demons start haunting him after his best friend becomes pregnant without telling him, and after his boyfriend of 15 years starts talking about children too. His life unravels, and self-destruction seems inevitable. | 89 | Yuval Hadadi | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | A Borrowed Identify | Eyad, a boy from an Arab village, has the opportunity to attend a prestigious boarding school in Jerusalem. Eyad knows love and disappointment, and he makes a decision that will alter the course of his life forever. | 104 | Eran Riklis | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | A Cantor's Head | One of the world's leading cantorial masters departs the bima, prompting questions about the dwindling tradition of Jewish sacred music. Cantor Jack Mendelson has been dubbed the Michael Jordan of Hazzanut. He has inspired legions of admirers worldwide, combining spiritual exploration, communal bonding, and dazzling showmanship. But after years of service, his operatic voice is no longer wanted by his congregation. Running the gamut of emotions, Cantor Mendelson, his proteges, and other musical luminariesâ explain the magic of this centuries-long art form, and what its loss represents. | 86 | Erik Greenberg Anjou | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | A Jerusalem Tale | Lazer and Baila Hirsch, an older Orthodox couple who have emigrated to Israel from America, struggle with financial hardship and general misfortune. Lazer, a Bretzlav Hassid, finds that his capacity for simcha (joy) is put to the test. The couple prays for a miracle, but miracles come in unexpected guise. "A Jerusalem Tale" is a story of spiritual redemption. | 18 | Tehila Wiesenberg | Israel | English | Festival |
| 2020 | A Story About Rain | In a world without rain, a couple discovers that they have the power to create water. This ability increases the man's status in the world and creates distance between him and his wife | 18 | Bracha Yaniger | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Abulele | Adam's older brother was killed in a car crash a year ago. His family has not been the same since. As his parents struggle to cope with their grief, Adam, age 10, plagued with guilt over his brother's death, feels he is all alone in the world. But everything changes the day he meets Abulele. The Abulele are ancient, bear-sized monsters. Local legends tell that they are extremely dangerous, but in fact, they turn out to be quite friendly and playful creatures. Abulele quickly becomes Adam's best and most secret friend. Together, they outsmart Adam's mean schoolteacher and beat the class bullies. But Adam's parents start to suspect he is harboring a secret. And when a government Special Forces unit called "Thunder" appears in the neighborhood on a mission to capture Abulele, things go from bad to worse. In order to save his best friend, Adam will have to get Abulele back home to its family, and to do so, he will need to put the past behind him and realize that when you truly love someone, you are never really alone. | 90 | Jonathan Geva | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Africa | Struggling with post-retirement life, 68-year-old Meir goes out on a personal journey to reconstruct his shaken sense of meaning and vitality, in this cinematic experience of an ageing parent crafted by the hands of his loving son. | 82 | Oren Gerner | Africa | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | AKA Nadia | Maya is a happily married mother of two. She is a successful choreographer and everything seems to be perfect...but this life is a lie. Unbeknownst to her family and everyone around her, she has a hidden past. | 115 | Tova Ascher | United Kingdom, Israel | Arabic, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Albert Einstein: Still a Revolutionary | Albert Einstein was a world renowned celebrity, greeted like a rock star whenever he appeared in public. He was an outspoken social and political activist, an anti-war firebrand who was on the right side of controversial issues like women's rights, racism and nuclear arms control. He warned the world early on that Hitler was intent on war and the destruction of the Jewish people, and was strategic and effective in helping to rescue Jews from the Nazis before World War II., Using a wealth of rarely seen archival footage, letters to and from Einstein, and new and illuminating interviews, Albert Einstein: Still a Revolutionary shows us a man who, while celebrated for revealing some of the fundamental laws governing our universe, was a true humanitarian; a man who believed in always doing the right thing. | 80 | Julia Newman | USA | English | Festival |
| 2020 | An Act of Defiance | In this riveting historical drama, 10 political activists (including Nelson Mandela and his inner circle of Black and Jewish supporters) face a possible death sentence for conspiracy to commit sabotage after they are arrested by the apartheid South African government during a raid in the town of Rivonia during the summer of 1963. Bram Fischer (exceptionally played by Peter Paul Muller), a sympathetic lawyer, risks his career and freedom to defend these men, attempting to hide the fact that he, too, frequently convened on the farm where they were arrested | 123 | Jean van de Velde | Netherlands | Drama | Festival |
| 2020 | An Irrepressible Woman | Leon Blum, the Jewish French socialist politician and three-time Prime Minister, stands at the heart of a new film. Janot Reichenbach (Elsa Zylberstein) fell in love with Blum (Hippolyte Girardot) when she was only sixteen. Years later, when they could finally be together, the Nazis arrived in France and Janot gave up her comfortable life to link her destiny to that of Leon Blum. | 105 | Laurent Heynemann | France | French | Festival |
| 2020 | Army of Lovers in the Holy Land | "Army of Lovers" is a Swedish pop-dance band that has enjoyed a string of European hits in the 1990s, hits that are based on kitsch lyrics, high camp videos, and a libertine philosophy. This documentary film takes a fun and revealing look at one of Europe's most outrageous acts, the band's enduring popularity in Israel, and the vocalist's surprising decision to move to Israel, a decision that brings about their first-ever concert in the Holy Land. | 61 | Asaf Galay | Israel | English, Swedish, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Aulcie | "Aulcie" tells the inspiring story of Aulcie Perry, a basketball legend who led Maccabi Tel Aviv to an upset win in the European Championship. During the summer of 1976, Aulcie Perry was spotted by a scout for Maccabi Tel Aviv while playing at the Rucker courts in Harlem and was quickly signed to play for their fledgling team. The Israeli players immediately responded to Aulcie's leadership, and that year they had what one Sports Illustrated writer described as "the most extraordinary season in its remarkable history" and what Perry later called "the best nine months of my life." In 1977, Perry helped the team to its first European Championship, a prize they took four years later again under his leadership. After the season, to the surprise of many, Aulcie Perry converted to Judaism, adopted the Hebrew name Elisha Ben Avraham, and became an Israeli citizen. This inspiring film tells the story of this remarkable athlete who captured the spirit of a nation, triumphant and victorious against all odds, and put Israel on the map. | 50 | Dani Menkin | United States, Israel | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Ben-Gurion, Epilogue | Based on archive material, the film reveals the final years of Israel's founder, David Ben-Gurion. Excluded from leadership, he allowed himself a hindsight perspective on the Zionist enterprise. | 61 | Yariv Moxer | Israel, Frane, Germany | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Box For Life | Noah Klieger was a French Jewish teenager during WWII. He lay on the beach of Dunkirk when hundreds of thousands of British soldiers were evacuated to Britain. He smuggled Jewish children from Belgium to Switzerland. He was captured by the Germans and was sent to Auschwitz. When he arrived, he claimed himself as a boxer which saved his life. He was the last remnant of the boxing team of Auschwitz, the oldest active journalist in the world, a crew member of the Ship "Exodus ." In "Box for Life," Noah returns for the first time to the places that marked his life. Noah Klieger is an example of courage, optimism and resilience. He is the Jewish "Forrest Gump." | 60 | Uri Borreda | France | French | Festival |
| 2020 | Breaking Bread | Founded by Dr. Nof Atamna-Ismaeel, the first Muslim Arab to win Israel's MasterChef, the A-sham Arabic Food Festival is creating social change through food. At the Festival, Arab and Jewish Israeli chefs collaborate on delectable dishes, working together to transform traditional recipes. Celebrating their unique cultural heritages and their common love of food, the chefs prove that there is no space for religion and politics in the kitchen. | 85 | Beth Elisa Hawk | United Kingdom | English | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | Bridging Urban America: The Story of Ralph Modjeski | This film is about one of America's leading engineers and how his passion for bridge building contributed to the urbanization of America, transforming cities and commerce through innovation and ingenuity and how eight strategically designed North American superstructures remain globally significant today. It is a film about the interplay between science and creativity. | 87 | Basia Myszynski & Leonard Myszynski | USA, Canada | English | Festival |
| 2020 | Broken Mirrors | Shadowed by a strict, military father who inflicts severe methods of punishment as a form of discipline, seventeen-year-old Ariella commits a grave error that her father isn't willing to punish her for. Seeking a punishment of her own, Ariella embarks on a dark quest where she will discover a secret to her father's past that will lead them to confront one another. | 1:40:00 | Imri Matalon, Aviad Givon | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Bukra fil Mish-Mish | Shortly after the death of his special uncles, Didier Frenkel descends into the basement of their shared home and finds a treasure: an ancient archive of animated films from Egypt starring Mish-Mish Effendi, the Arab equivalent of Mickey Mouse. His uncles kept this surprising chapter of their lives under cover. Didier begins restoring the films and unveils the story of the rise and fall of these pioneers of Arab animation. Surprisingly, Didier's mother strongly opposes the project. | 73 | Tal Michael | Israel, France | English, Hebrew, French | Festival |
| 2020 | Chichinette: How I Accidentally Became a Spy | Marthe Cohn, a 98-year-old French-Jewish lady who was a spy in Nazi Germany in WWII and never spoke about her experience after the war, now travels the globe to share her story. | 86 | Nicola Hens | Germany | French | Festival |
| 2020 | Closed Season | Bruno, a young German entomology student, travels to an Israeli kibbutz, but he is not seeking a romantic experience in the young Zionist state, nor will he make any scientific discoveries. Before her death, Bruno's mother told him to deliver a letter to Avi, a German-born Jewish member of the kibbutz. Reluctantly, Avi shares his story with the young man. During the war, while fleeing to Switzerland to escape the Nazis, Avi was saved by the brutish, hard-working peasant Fritz, a man as remote as the mountains of the Black Forest he calls home. Against his wife Emma's wishes, Fritz invites the Jew to hide and work at his farm. But Fritz has other things on his mind. He and his wife are unable to have children, and he proposes that Avi father a child with his wife. Inevitably, the erotically charged situation leads to unexpected complications. Spare but sumptuous cinematography captures the passion, desire and jealousy waiting to explode. This searingly intimate film will stay with you long after you leave the theater. The undeniable talents of director Franziska Schlotterer mark her as someone to watch; in her first narrative feature she has created an intense, nuanced examination of the awkwardness of human relationships. . | 100 | Franziska Schlotterer | Germany, Israel | German, English | Festival |
| 2020 | Cloudy Sunday | Set in Thessaloniki during the German occupation in 1943, the film tells the story of the forbidden love between Estrea, a young Jewish girl, and Giorgos, the Greek brother-in-law of the famed composer Vassilis Tsitsanis. Much of the action takes place in and around the ouzeri owned by the then 28-year-old Tsitsanis at a time when he had reached his peak as a composer. In fact, the film's English title, CLOUDY SUNDAY, references Tsitsanis' beloved classic Synnefisameni Kyriaki, one of the songs featured in the movie. | 113 | Manousos Manousakis | Greece | Greek | Festival |
| 2020 | Dayan: The First Family | Five generations, four chapters, and one lineage you thought you knew. From the Yishuv and the establishment of Israel, to the subsequent victories, defeats and disillusionment, the Dayan family story is integrally linked to the mythology and history of the state of Israel. For the first time, the story of the First Family of Israel is seen on the big screen. | 42 | Anat Goren | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Dough | An old Jewish baker struggles to keep his business afloat until his young Muslim apprentice drops cannabis in the dough and sends sales sky high. | 94 | John Goldschmidt | UK, Hungary | English | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | Douze Points | A comedy-thriller created by mixing ISIS operatives, tough Mossad agents, and a unique relationship between two young Muslim guys in the most rainbow-colored song contest imaginable. | 90 | Daniel Syrkin | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas | The amazing story of a group of Jewish songwriters who wrote the soundtrack to Christmas. | 51 | Larry Weinstein | Canada | English | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | Egg Cream | "Egg Cream" is a bittersweet look at memory, history, and the enduring meaning of a beloved chocolate soda drink born in Jewish immigrant neighborhoods at the turn of the 20th century. The egg cream contained neither eggs nor cream,it was a product of necessity and hardship but also a source of joy and sweetness. Through a tour of egg cream establishments led by a filmmaker and his young daughter, exhaustively researched archival imagery, and even a song by Lou Reed, the film examines the Jewish experience in America and the mythology of a simpler time. | 16 | Nora Miller & Peter Miller | United States | English | Festival |
| 2020 | Getting Serious | A Jerusalem romantic comedy about a moderately Orthodox young man who pretends to be more religious than he is in order to impress a girl. The two begin dating; the chemistry is great but the young man has to tell more and more lies to keep the relationship going. What will happen when she discovers the truth? | 20 | Matan Golomb | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | God of the Piano | Anat has never been able to reach her father's exacting musical standards, and now her family's hope of producing a musical prodigy rests on her unborn son. When the baby is born deaf, she cannot accept it and resorts to extreme measures to ensure that her child will be the composer that her father always wanted. But when the boy grows up indifferent to his destiny as a great pianist, Anat will have to stand up to her father, and her own actions. | 80 | Itay Tal | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Golda | Shortly before her passing, Golda Meir was interviewed for Israeli television. After shooting ended, the cameras kept rolling, recording an intimate talk with the first and only woman to ever rule Israel. As she lit one cigarette after another, Golda spoke freely, pleading her case for her term as Prime Minister, five turbulent years that secured her place in history, albeit at a high personal cost. | 87 | Sagi Bornstein, Udi Nir, Shani Rozanes | Israel, Germany | Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2020 | Good Morning Son | Omri, a young soldier, was injured in a military operation. His loving family and loyal friends are fighting to bring him back to life. They all go through emotional, funny, and human moments which connect them to Omri and to each other. | 81 | Sharon Bar-Ziv | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | Hannah Cohen's Holy Communion | Set in Dublin in the 1970's, this film explores a rarely glimpsed Ireland, as seen through the eyes of spirited, seven-year-old, Hannah Cohen. Hannah Cohen can't wait to make her Holy Communion. The only problem is, she's Jewish! An Irish/Jewish film with an international feel, the beauty of this story lies in its simplicity, humor, and the universal desire to fit in. | 13 | Shimmy Marcus | United Kingdom | English | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | Happy Times | A boorish Israeli-American couple plan a Sabbath dinner party for a group of fellow ex-pat friends and family in their Hollywood Hills mansion. What could possibly go wrong? Well, start with a deadly mix of alcohol, add inflated egos, some inappropriate lust, and top with raging jealousy, and the result is a cauldron of murderous mayhem. A shotgun, garden shears, kitchen knives, and even a garbage disposal are used as weapons of choice as these deranged guests turn on each other in director Michael Mayer's outrageous and bloody comedy. Actors include Austin's own Alon Pdut. | 93 | Michael Mayer | USA, Israel, Italy | Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2020 | Harmonia | "Harmonia" is an award-winning and musically enchanting modern retelling of the biblical triangle between the childless Abraham and Sarah and young Hagar. In this adaptation, Sarah is the harpist of the Jerusalem Philharmonic; Abraham is its almighty conductor. When Hagar, a young Palestinian horn player, joins the Orchestra, she bonds with Sarah, and a unique friendship evolves between the two women. Hagar, feeling Sarah's pain from not having children, offers to have a baby for her from Abraham, shaking the thin balance in the family. The biblical adaptation later develops to an emotional clash between the firstborn son Ben, a 12-year-old prodigal pianist, and his two mothers. Harmonia uncovers the metaphoric emotional roots from the viewpoint of the women involved in the ancient conflict between the two peoples living in Jerusalem. | 97 | Ori Sivan | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Hidden Face | The film is a unique journey into the meeting point of Jewish faith and the Holocaust. Through the Admor of Sanz-Klausenburg's story of heroism, the film exposes the complex relations between the ultra-Orthodox Jews and the memory of the Holocaust, as well as their spiritual victory over the Nazis. | 54 | Eyal Datz | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | L'dor v'Dor | Director and composer Benjamin Till explores what it means to be British and Jewish in this quirky and heartwarming musical film. Till set about finding 100 British Jews, one born in every year between 1918 and 2017. The first shot belongs to a one-year-old in Leeds, and from then on, with each new shot, the person featured is a year older than the previous one. The film reflects the true celebration of the diversity of Jewish people. Till describes his film as a "musical postcard from British Jewish people to the rest of the world." | 12 | Benjamin Till | Canada | English | Festival |
| 2020 | Magic Men | This is the story of a 78-year-old Greek man and his Hasidic rapper son who have been estranged for many years. They embark together on a road trip from Israel to Greece, searching for an old magician who saved the father's life during World War II. The journey leads them to absurd encounters and ultimately brings them to a final confrontation of father and son. | 100 | Erez Tadmor & Guy Nativ | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Menachem Begin: War and Peace | Israel's 6th Prime minister Menachem Begin led Israel for six dramatic and tumultuous years, which produced waves that are still felt deeply within the fabric of Israel's social and political landscape. During Begin's shortened one and a half terms of office, he faced a maelstrom of challenges and made a handful of fateful decisions that led to both creating peace and launching a hubristic war. By exploring these events, the film depicts a multi-faceted portrait of a man who held on to an unwavering ideology full of conflicts, as well as the cultural mosaic and fissured society that he sought to lead. The film merges rare archival footage shown for the first time, as well as current interviews held with key figures during Menachem Begin's time as Prime Minister. | 85 | Levi Zini | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Miriam | Heart-wrenching story of a woman who takes another's identity to survive the most horrible time of the 20th Century. "Miriam" is the triumphant story of one woman's survival and success, which takes place in Lithuania over a period of forty years, from the German occupation of World War II through the Soviet era, and is based upon the true story of Miriam Shafer. | 122 | Matt Cimber | USA | English | Festival |
| 2020 | My Name is Sara | The true life-story of Sara Guralnick, a 13 year-old Polish Jew whose entire family was killed by Nazis in September of 1942. After a grueling escape to the Ukrainian countryside, Sara steals her Christian best friend's identity and finds refuge in a small village where she is taken in by a farmer and his young wife. She soon discovers the dark secrets of her employers' marriage, compounding the greatest secret she must strive to protect, her true identity. | 111 | Steven Oritt | USA | English | Festival |
| 2020 | My Polish Honeymoon | Anna and Adam, a young couple from Paris with Polish Jewish origins, leave for the first time of their lives for Poland. They were invited to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the destruction of the birth village community of Adam's grandfather. If Adam is not very excited about this trip, Anna is excited to discover the land that is also her grandmother's. Here they are, looking for their origins in a journey full of surprises, during which they will not find exactly what they came for . | 88 | Elise Otzenberger | France | French | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | On The Beaches | England, 1933. After running away from home, Kitty and her brother David cheer themselves up by playing soldiers. But their game takes an unexpected turn when they discover a suspicious German hiding in a clifftop hut. The man is a Jewish refugee by the name of Albert Einstein. | 18 | Luke Rodgers | UK | English | Festival |
| 2020 | On the Map | In 1977, the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team prevailed over CSKA Moscow (known in the West as Red Army), a team that refused to play against Israel. Moments after this highly charged and historical win, Israeli-American basketball hero Tal Brody captured the heart of the nation when he famously said, "Israel is on the map, not just in sport, but in everything." The story of this triumph against all odds is told through the eyes of six American basketball players who joined Maccabi Tel Aviv. | 85 | Dani Menkin | USA & Israel | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles | Follows chef Yotam on his quest to bring the sumptuous art and decadence of Versailles to life in cake form at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. | 75 | Laura Gabbert | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | Pop 30 | Mika's boyfriend Nati puts an end to the relationship when Mika proposes marriage. Mika moves back home and becomes addicted to the ATARI video game still sitting in her childhood room. But going back to the past doesn't heal Mika's heartache. She will have to find another way of moving on. | 18 | Shira Billig | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Portrayal | From the time that he was a child, Roman Lapshin has been haunted by a secret his late grandfather revealed to him when he was only 12 years old: a personal disclosure regarding the mysterious and troubling origins of thousands of pieces of missing artwork his grandfather had painted over his lifetime. As long as he can remember, Roman has been obsessed with the burden of his grandfather's revelation, convinced that he alone must investigate and expose the murky fate of his grandfather's artwork to redeem his grandfather's name and artistic legacy. But finding the paintings will mean going against the wishes of his entire family, which has been guarding this secret all along. It also means confronting the notorious and powerful man at the center of this secret whom Roman believes exploited his grandfather when he was a desperate, recent immigrant to a new country. Despite the daunting mission for redemption amidst the pressure from his family to leave the past behind, Roman is determined to relentlessly pursue his undertaking, regardless of the collateral damage that his actions could cause. But as his journey unfolds, he begins to realize that his quest for justice, and his obsession for vengeance against a man he has believed to be the boogeyman since he was a child may not lead to the salvation he had hoped to achieve. "Portrayal" follows Roman across 3 continents and 5 countries as he tries to put together the pieces of a missing puzzle and come to terms with a family legacy and his own personal journey of restoration, growth, and healing. | 96 | Billie Mintz | Canada | English | Festival |
| 2020 | Resistance | The story of mime Marcel Marceau as he works with a group of Jewish boy scouts and the French Resistance to save the lives of ten thousand orphans during World War II. | 120 | Jonathan Jakubowicz | UK, France, Germany, US | English, German, Hebrew Latin, Italian, French | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | Restoration | A triangle of fatherhood ties, a triangle of love. Seventy-year-old Yaakov Fidelman (Sasson Gabai, "The Band's Visit") hangs on with all his might to the antique restoration workshop which has been his life's work. After his long-time business partner passes away, Fidelman rejects his son Noah's idea to close the business and build an apartment complex on the site. He believes that with the help of his new apprentice Anton, he'll find a way to save his workshop, his world, and his solitary way of life. When Anton falls in love with Hava, Noah's pregnant wife, the two young men compete not only over a father, but also over a woman and the baby she carries. Will the old man understand that his only hope for redemption is to learn to let go and admit and accept his weaknesses and the dictate of time? | 105 | Yossi Madmoni | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Run Boy Run | A superlative saga of courage and compassion, "RUN BOY RUN" tells the extraordinary true story of a Polish boy who seeks the kindness of others in his solitary struggle to outlast the Nazi occupation and keep alive his Jewish faith. Escaping the Warsaw ghetto at the behest of his father, nine-year-old Srulik (movingly portrayed by twin child actors Andrzej and Kamil Tkacz) flees to the woods. There, he learns to hide from SS patrols and scour for food, until loneliness and the harsh onset of winter drive him back to civilization. Taken in by a kindhearted farmer's wife (Elisabeth Duda), he is given shelter and a new identity. Passing himself off as Jurek, a Christian war orphan, the intrepid boy traverses the countryside from village to village, working as a farmhand under an ever-present threat of persecution. Some will help him survive and others will betray him. Just when it seems his childhood memories and identity could be lost forever, Jurek's harrowing journey culminates in a powerhouse conclusion and postscript. | 107 | Pepe Danquart | Germany, France | Polish, German, Russian, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2020 | Sabena Hijacking , My Version | "Sabena Hijacking - My Version" is a powerful, suspenseful docu-drama based on previously undiscovered audio recordings of the former pilot, Captain Reginald Levy. Captain Levy (now deceased) was in command of Sabena Flight 571 from Brussels, Belgium to Tel Aviv, Israel on 8 May 1972, when it was hijacked by four members from "Black September." the armed wing of Fatah or Palestine Liberalization Organization. | 104 | Rani Sa'ar | Israel | English, Hebrew, Arabic, French | Festival |
| 2020 | Sefarad | In 1496, Portugal's King D. Manuel prohibited Judaism. Some 400 years later, Barros Basto, a Portuguese army captain, converted to Judaism, and about twenty Jewish merchants founded the Jewish Community of Oporto, in the north of Portugal. | 94 | Luis Ismael | Portugal | English, Portuguese, Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | Shalom Bollywood | SHALOM BOLLYWOOD reveals the unlikely story of the 2000-year-old Indian Jewish community and its formative place in shaping the world's largest film industry. | 76 | Danny Ben-Moshe | Australia | English | Festival |
| 2020 | Space Torah | In 1996, NASA astronaut Dr. Jeff Hoffman brought a small Torah scroll on board Space Shuttle Columbia. On Shabbat, while orbiting Earth, he read from the book of Genesis, "In the beginning God created heaven and the earth." This is a story about inspiration, communities, and a man's journey. A story of how family, educators, scientific and religious communities achieve great things and bring our identity to new realms. | 25 | Rob Cooper | USA | English | Festival |
| 2020 | Stranger/Sister | The United States is experiencing a surge in hate crimes as a tide of white supremacy gathers momentum nationwide. Muslim and Jewish communities are particularly at risk. Stranger/Sister is the story of two ordinary women, one Muslim and one Jewish, who dare to believe they can join hands to stop the wave of hate. Overcoming a long history of distrust between their two religions, they build a movement that turns strangers into sisters, challenging our assumptions about how to fight hate in America. Intimately following women from Sisterhood chapters in Austin, Chicago and across the Nation, the Sisters build a powerful network of hope in a time of chaos and hate. | 39 | Kirsten Kelly & Katie Taber | USA | English | Festival |
| 2020 | Sushi, Meatballs, and Everything | A young woman has decided to stand up to her loving parents-in-law, once and for all. | 10 | Liel Gur | Israel | Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2020 | Sustainable Nation | In a world where water is everything, "Sustainable Nation" follows three individuals who are doing their part to bring sustainable water solutions to an increasingly thirsty planet. | 60 | Michah Smith | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | The Art of Waiting | Liran and Tali, a couple in their thirties who dream of having a child together, are one day told they will have to undergo fertility treatments. What seems simple at first turns out to be very complex. They discover that in order to be parents to a child, they will have to undergo a long journey full of hardships, with all the physical and mental difficulties that accompany it, family pressures, and of course the challenge it poses to the couple's relationship. Will their love last? | 90 | Erez Tadmor | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | The Ashram Children | For 20 years, Jonathan, the filmmaker, grew up in Jerusalem and in an Ashram in India, which he had to keep secret. In the Ashram he was taught to dedicate his life to the Guru, to always think of him. That way, one could finally reach his goal in life, awaken from the illusion, realize the "truth," and become enlightened. Twenty years (and a lot of therapy) later, the director sets on a journey to understand the secret he was forced to keep about India throughout his entire life, the effect it has on him even now, to find out what happened to the other Ashram children, and to finally understand: had he been raised in a cult? | 67 | Jonathan Ofek | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | The Cakemaker | Thomas, a young and talented German baker, is having an affair with Oren, an Israeli married man who dies in a car crash. Thomas travels to Jerusalem seeking answers. Keeping his secret to himself, he starts working for Anat, his lover's widow, who owns a small cafe. Although not fully kosher and despised by the religious, his delicious cakes turn the place into a city attraction. Finding himself involved in Anat's life in a way far beyond his anticipation, Thomas will stretch his lie to a point of no return. | 105 | Ofir Raul Graizer | Israel, Germany | English, Hebrew, German | Festival |
| 2020 | The Crossing | THE CROSSING tells the story of the adventurous 10-year-old Gerda and her brother Otto, whose parents are in the Norwegian resistance movement during the Second World War. One day, just before Christmas in 1942, Gerda and Otto's parents are arrested, leaving the siblings on their own. Following the arrest, they discover two Jewish children, Sarah and Daniel, hidden in a secret cupboard in their basement at home. It is now up to Gerda and Otto to finish what their parents started: to help Sarah and Daniel flee from the Nazis, cross the border to neutral Sweden, and reunite them with their parents. "THE CROSSING" is a film about the confidence, uncompromising loyalty, and great courage you can find in even the youngest of children. | 95 | Johanne Helgeland | Norway | Norwegian, English subtitles | Festival |
| 2020 | The Day of Wrath | In the autumn of 1943, a young Jew named Emanuel Blatt, a refugee from a nearby ghetto, appears at a Polish monastery asking for help. Nazis are punishing Poles with death for hiding Jews. An SS squadron-leader in charge of a death squad comes to the monastery. The Day of Wrath is a full-of-tension blend of war thriller and morality play. Written by Polish writer of Jewish origin, Roman Brandstatter, the Holocaust and hope for survival are the main themes of this movie. | 84 | Jacek Raginis-Krolikewicz | Poland | Polish | Festival |
| 2020 | The Dead of Jaffa | Three children from the West Bank are smuggled into Israel, arriving at the doorstep of George and Rita's house in Jaffa. Their mother is dead, and their father has been sentenced for life. As Israeli Palestinians, George is afraid that hiding illegal aliens will endanger Rita and himself, while Rita believes the arrival of these children could give meaning to her life. Nearby, a foreign film is being shot. Jerry, an English director, is making a movie about his parents' love affair in 1947, when they served in the British army in Palestine. George is invited to play a part. When the two stories intertwine, tensions erupt. | 96 | Ram Loevy | Israel | Arabic, English, Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | The Execution of Memory | The film is a screen adaptation of Jerzy Ficowski's poem under the same title from the poetry volume "Reading of Ashes," that is devoted to the subject of the Holocaust and World War II. The poetry volume was published on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. "The Execution of Memory" is a metaphorical story about the "demons of the past" and the fight that must be taken to be able to free themselves from them. | 13 | Gabi Bania | Poland | Polish | Festival |
| 2020 | The Good Nazi | "The Good Nazi" tells the story of Major Karl Plagge, a Nazi officer who, during the Holocaust, was commandant of a forced labor camp called "HKP" in Vilnius, Lithuania. In reality, he was sheltering hundreds of Jewish families. By the end, many were saved in hiding places dug into the ground and carved into the walls. Many more were executed by the SS and buried in a mass grave. Today, the former "HKP" is unchanged. A group of scientists arrive to locate the hiding places of those who were saved and identify the mass grave of those who were murdered. A child survivor of the camp and an American physician, whose mother was saved by Major Plagge, join them. The film tracks their three stories and, ultimately, brings to light the unknown tale of a Schindler-type German who listened to his conscience instead of his superiors. | 52 | Ric Esther Bienstock & Yaron Niski | Canada, Israel | English | Festival |
| 2020 | The Interpreter | 80-year-old Ali Ungar comes across a book by a former SS officer describing his wartime activities in Slovakia. He realizes that his parents were executed by him. He sets out to take revenge but finds instead the officer's 70-year-old son, Georg, a retired teacher. Georg, who had avoided his father all his life, decides to find out more about him and offers Ali to be his interpreter. The two old men, opposites in all ways, embark on a bittersweet journey to meet surviving witnesses of the wartime tragedy. They discover a country eager to forget its past. They realize that their memories are fragments mixed with their imagination and interpretation. They connect in silence and manage to discover their own identities. | 113 | Martin Sulik | Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria | Slovak, German, English, Russian | Festival |
| 2020 | The Last Mentsch | Marcus Schwartz (Mario Adorf) is an old man who has lived with a cautiously buried secret for most of his life, for Marcus Schwartz was born as Menah'hem Teitelbaum and has concealed his Jewish heritage ever since he survived the horrors of Auschwitz. Now, as he has decided that he wants to be buried in a Jewish cemetery, he has to verify what he has carefully hidden for most of his life, and that proves to be quite a difficult task. On the journey to his roots in Satu Mare, a little village on the Hungarian-Romanian border, he is accompanied by Gul, a young German Girl of Turkish heritage, who, just like Marcus, tries to come to terms with her past. | 95 | Pierre-Henry Salfati | Germany, Switzerland, France | German, Hungarian, Hebrew, English, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2020 | The Matchmaker | A teenager learns some important lessons about love and life one summer in this romantic drama from director Avi Nesher. It's 1968, and culturally Israel is finally letting go of the style and mores of the 1950s as the upheaval of the '60s is beginning to make itself felt. Arik (Tuval Shafir) is a 16-year-old boy with a taste for detective novels who is looking for a summer job. Arik's father introduces him to someone who can put him to work, Yankele Bride (Adir Miller) is a matchmaker who finds mates for lonely souls, and he gives Arik a job digging up information on potential mates for his clients. Yankele's philosophy is to give people "what they need, not what they want," and he searches for mates for a variety of clients, ranging from a beautiful midget (Bat-el Papura) to a bitter librarian (Dror Kenen). Arik also finds himself falling in love when he meets Tamara (Neta Porat), a girl with a wild streak who is spending the summer in Haifa. But Arik isn't sure why the matchmaker who is so clearly infatuated with the pretty Clara (Maya Dagan) is still single, and the boy also tries to make sense of some gossip about how Yankele survived the Holocaust. | 27 | Avi Nesher | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | The Museum | A documentary collage depicting the life and art of the Israel Museum. | 74 | Ran Tal | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | The Neurosurgeon (Neurochirurg) | Doctor Zabek is a famous Polish neurosurgeon working in one of Warsaw's hospitals. At the other end of the world, in San Francisco, another neurosurgeon of Polish origins, doctor Bankiewicz, invented a breakthrough technology for placing genes and hormones directly in human's brain. The new technology has been used so far to successfully cure Parkinson's disease and brain tumors. Now the doctors discover that it seems the technique may cure the very rare disease, AACD DEFICIT, which stops the human body's physical and mental development in infancy. | 81 | Magdalena Zagała | Poland | Polish | Festival |
| 2020 | The Other Story | Two rebellious young women, one fleeing the chaos of secular hedonism for the disciplined comforts of faith; the other desperate to transcend her oppressive religious upbringing for sexual and spiritual freedom, cross paths unexpectedly in Jerusalem, to startling consequences. | 112 | Avi Nesher | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | The Outrageous Sophie Tucker | A documentary focusing on the tumultuous early days of this iconic vaudeville superstar who ruled the 1920's Flapper Era in the U.S. Tucker was the first woman to infatuate her audiences with a bold, bawdy, and brassy style unlike any other previous performer. Using all of "The Last of the Red Hot Mamas" 400+ recently rediscovered personal scrapbooks, authors Susan and Lloyd Ecker take you on their seven year journey retracing Tucker's 60-year show business career. | 96 | William Gazecki | USA | English | Festival |
| 2020 | The Painted Bird | A young Jewish boy somewhere in Eastern Europe seeks refuge during World War II where he encounters many different characters. | 169 | Vaclav Marhoul | Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine | Czech, German, Russian, Latin | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | The Pirate Captain Toledano | "The Pirate Captain Toledano" is the world's first film set in the little-known world of Jewish piracy in the Caribbean. It brings to life the story of refugees from the Inquisition who found a way to strike back against Spain. | 10 | Arnon Shorr | USA | English | Festival |
| 2020 | The Prague Orgy | When a famous American writer accepts a quest from a Czech emigrant to bring him back unique Yiddish manuscripts, he accepts not only a dangerous journey to Prague, where he is watched at every step he makes by communist secret police, but he also needs to face the emigrant's flamboyant and wild wife. She is in a possession of the manuscripts, and she is very angry at her husband, as he left her with his mistress for the US. She will not surrender the manuscripts easily. | 112 | Irena Pavllaskova | Czech Republic | English, Czech | Festival |
| 2020 | The Rabbi from Hezbollah | Ibrahim Yassin was born in a small village in Lebanon and was destined to follow in his father's footsteps as a farmer and shepherd, but fate had something else in store. As the course of his life turns against him, death becomes his only wish. But just when it seems as if the story's over, a new one begins, placing Yassin at the heart of some of the most daring, dangerous, and secret operations Israel attempted in Lebanon in the 1980s and '90s. When once again the earth trembles beneath his feet, he is forced to start all over again. The film sketches an intimate portrait of a man who through tribulations, coincidence, and choice became one of Israel's leading spies. | 64 | Itamar Chen | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | The Rabbi Goes West | A Chabad rabbi and his wife's adapt to their new home in Montana and encounter a mixed reception from that state's small Jewish community. | 73 | Amy Geller, Gerald Peary | United States | English | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | The Sign Painter | Follows the talented Ansis as he negotiates a national dictatorship in his pursuit of an art career. | 112 | Viesturs Kairiss | Latvia, Czech Republic, Lithuania | Latvian, German, Russian, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2020 | The Testament | Yoel, a senior Holocaust researcher, is in the midst of a widely covered legal battle with powerful forces in Austria, concerning a brutal massacre of Jews that took place toward the end of WWII in the village of Lensdorf. An influential family of industrialists on whose land the murder took place is planning to build a real estate project on the very same land. Yoel suspects that their aim is to bury the affair for good but has trouble finding the conclusive evidence that would stop the project., While investigating the incident, Yoel examines classified testimonies of Holocaust survivors, and to his shock and surprise he finds a testimony given by his motherâ a testimony he didn't know existed. In her testimony she confesses to a substantial secret from her past. Yoel, who's conducting a double-investigation, personal and scientific, is trapped between walls of silence: on one side, denial of the Holocaust on the part of the villagers, and on the other, his mother's silence regarding her past. As an historian with an unshakeable commitment to the truth, he decides to continue his investigations even at the cost of ruining his personal and professional life. | 88 | Amichai Greenberg | Israel, Austria | Hebrew, German, English, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2020 | The Unorthodox | The year is 1983 and Yaakov Cohen, the owner of a Jerusalem printing press, is tired of being pushed around. It seems that he was born on the wrong side, with the wrong family name, and in a moment's decision he decides to establish a Sephardic-ultra-Orthodox party that will run the Jerusalem municipality. He gathers two friends, and together they improvise a campaignâ no means, no connections, no money, but with much rage, passion and a sense of justice. | 92 | Eliran Malka | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | The Women's Balcony | An accident during a bar mitzvah celebration leads to a gender rift in a devout Orthodox community in Jerusalem, in this rousing, good-hearted tale about women speaking truth to patriarchal power. When the women's balcony in an Orthodox synagogue collapses, leaving the rabbi's wife in a coma and the rabbi in shock, the congregation falls into crisis. Charismatic young Rabbi David appears to be a savior after the accident, but he slowly starts pushing his fundamentalist ways and tries to take control. This tests the women's friendships and creates an almost Lysistrata-type rift between the community's women and men. | 97 | Shlomit Nehama, Emil Ben-Shimon | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | They Ain't Ready For Me | "They Ain't Ready For Me" is the story of Tamar Manasseh, the black rabbinical student who leads the fight against gun violence on the south side of Chicago. Tamar's identity and personality combine to make her a force to be reckoned with. | 89 | Brad Rothschild | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | Those Who Remained | Having survived the camps, 42-year old Aldo lives a solitary life as a doctor in Budapest. Sixteen-year-old Klara lives reluctantly with her great-aunt, holding on to hope that her father and mother will return. She meets Aldo, and soon the two of them find something in each other that they've been missing for years. | 83 | Barnabas Toth | Hungary | Hungarian | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | Thou Shalt Not Hate | Simone Segre, a renowned surgeon of Jewish origins, lives in a city in the north-east of Italy. Leading a quiet life, Simone has an elegant apartment and no connection with his past. One day he finds himself assisting a victim of a hit and run accident. But when he discovers a Nazi tattoo on the man's chest, Simone abandons him to his destiny. Filled with guilt, he ends up tracing the man's family: Marica, the eldest daughter; Marcello, a teenager plagued with racial hate; and little Paolo. The night will come when Marica knocks at Simone's door and unknowingly asks for payback. | 23 | Mauro Mancini | Italy, Poland | Italian | Festival |
| 2020 | To Be A Cooperman | When Aaron, the most strait-laced police officer on the force, is forced to turn a blind eye to the law, the consequences are disastrous. | 17 | Benny Snyder | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2020 | Vice Versa | An innocent and honest relationship between a religious Yeshiva scholar and an 18-year-old cancer patient turns into an intimate and passionate love story that transcends the rules of religion, society, and faith. | 90 | Bazi Gete | Israel | Hebrew, Amharic | Festival |
| 2020 | Viral: Antisemitism In Four Mutations | Antisemitism in the US and Europe is spreading and is seemingly unstoppable. Andrew Goldberg examines its rise, traveling through four countries to follow antisemites and their victims, along with experts, politicians and locals. | 83 | Andrew Goldberg | United States | English, French, Hungarian | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit | Based on the semi-autobiographical book by Judith Kerr, the story of a Jewish family who flee Berlin on the even of the election in 1933. They initially settle in Zurich before moving to Paris, and finally, to London. | 119 | Caroline Link | Germany, Switzerland | German | AJFF365 |
| 2020 | Winter Journey | Martin Goldsmith never knew what happened to his parents before they escaped from Germany in 1941. Over a weekend, he confronts his father, and we are brought back to the complex and confusing 1930s when the parents were young musicians. | 90 | Anders Ostergaard, Erzsebet Racz | Denmark, Germany | English, German | Festival |
| 2020 | Working Woman | Life at work becomes unbearable for Orna. Her boss appreciates and promotes her, while making inappropriate advances. Her husband struggles to keep his new restaurant afloat, and Orna becomes the main breadwinner for their three children. When her world is finally shattered, she must pull herself together to fight, in her own way, for her job and a sense of self-worth. | 93 | Michal Aviad | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2019 | 100 Faces | "100 Faces" is a true celebration of the diversity of the Jewish people, featuring 100 British-Jewish people, one born in every year between 1917 and 2018. | 14 | Benjamin Till | UK | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2019 | Ask Dr. Ruth | "Ask Dr. Ruth" chronicles the incredible life of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, a Holocaust survivor who became America's most famous sex therapist. The narrative shifts between Dr. Ruth's childhood as an orphan of the Holocaust and a playful retelling of her career highlights. With her diminutive frame, thick German accent, and uninhibited approach to sex therapy and education, Dr. Ruth transformed the conversation around sexuality. Her quick wit will keep you laughing throughout the film along with tender moments as she reflects on the loss and upheaval she endured as a young woman in 1940's Europe. | 100 | Ryan White | USA | English | Festival |
| 2019 | Beyond the Bolex | When visionary Jewish immigrant Jacques Bolsey invents the Bolex in the 1920's, he puts the first home movie camera in the hands of everyday folks, fomenting a film revolution that still inspires artists to this day. Nearly a century later, Alyssa Bolsey uncovers his long lost archive and journeys to discover the man behind the machine through his personal and professional struggles. | 80 | Alyssa Bolsey | Switzerland, United States, Canada, United Kingdom | English | Festival |
| 2019 | Golda's Balcony, The Film | Tovah Feldshuh, a Tony Award nominee for Best Actress, gave a stunning performance as Golda Meir in William Gibson's play "Golda's Balcony." Scott Schwartz employed a 4-camera shoot in 2019 to capture the original play into "Golda's Balcony, The Film (2019)." The play, and now the film, follows the trajectory of the life of Golda Meir from Russian immigrant to American schoolteacher to a leader of international politics as the fourth prime minister of Israel. Golda Meir was Israel's first and only female prime minister. Much of the film's focus is on the period surrounding the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Israel was attacked by Egypt and Syria. Gibson's drama suggests that Meir threatened Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger with the launch of nuclear weapons against her enemies, conceivably starting World War III, unless the U.S. came to her country's aid. | 86 | Scott Schwartz | United States | English | Festival |
| 2019 | Hidden Face | The Admor of Sanz-Klausenburg was a rabbi who experienced personal devastation yet, despite this, succeeded in rehabilitating his own life and that of his Chassidic community. Through his heroic story, the film presents the narratives of the Holocaust as told by different members of the ultra-Orthodox community. The film presents the complex relationship between ultra-Orthodox Jews and the memory of the Holocaust. Through rare archival footage and interviews with Sanz Chassidim it reveals the ways they experience the revival and spiritual victory over the Nazis and pass it on to the ensuing generations, while dealing with the biggest question of all, where was god during the Holocaust? | 54 | Eyal Datz | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2019 | Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People | Joseph Pulitzer's New York newspaper "The World" would transform American media and make him wealthy, admired, and feared. This film recounts the life and times of modern journalism's founding father. Best remembered for the prize bearing his name, Joseph Pulitzer arrived in the U.S. in the mid-1800s, a poor Jewish-Hungarian immigrant. After a humble start as a St. Louis reporter, he rose through the ranks of journalism and politics, eventually purchasing the trendsetting paper "The World." Over a four-decade publishing career, Pulitzer championed democratic ideals and the common man, fighting suppression of news, advocating for the poor, and exposing corruption, even as he overcame illness and attempts to discredit him. | 86 | Oren Rudavsky | USA | English | Festival |
| 2019 | Picture of His Life | World renowned wildlife photographer Amos Nachoum has one final photographic dream remaining - to photograph a Polar Bear underwater, while swimming alongside it. The film follows Amos in the Canadian Arctic, as he prepares for his ultimate challenge. As the journey unfolds, so does an intimate and painful story of dedication, sacrifice and personal redemption. | 72 | Dani Menkin, Yonatan Nir | Israel, United States, Canada | English, Hebrew, Inuktitut | Festival |
| 2019 | Shoelaces (Laces) | "Laces" tells the story of a complicated relationship between an aging father and his special-needs son, whom he abandoned while he was still a young boy. Reuben's (60) kidneys are failing, and his son Gadi (35) wants to donate one of his own kidneys to help save his father's life. However, the transplant committee objects to the procedure, claiming that Rueben, acting as Gadi's sole legal guardian, does not have the right to authorize such an invasive procedure. Gadi, who recently lost his mother, is afraid of losing his father as well. He feels he finally has the chance to do something meaningful; to become a man and stand on his own. He's furious with the committee's decision and sets out to fight for his right to save his father's life. Through the film's portrayal of a relationship full of love, rejection, and co-dependency, it manages to shed some light and question the importance of human life, human connection, and if life is even possible without either one of them. | 98 | Michael Rozenbaum & Marek Rozenbaum | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2019 | Tel Aviv on Fire | Salam, an inexperienced young Palestinian man, becomes a writer on a popular soap opera after a chance meeting with an Israeli soldier. His creative career is on the rise - until the soldier and the show's financial backers disagree about how the show should end, and Salam is caught in the middle. | 100 | Sameh Zoabi | Israel | Arabic, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2019 | The Keeper | The Keeper tells the incredible true story of Bert Trautmann (David Kross), a German soldier and prisoner of war who, against a backdrop of British post-war protest and prejudice, secures the position of Goalkeeper at Manchester City, and in doing so becomes a footballing icon. His signing causes outrage to thousands of fans, many of them Jewish. But Bert receives support from an unexpected direction: Rabbi Alexander Altmann, who fled the Nazis. Bert's love for Margaret (Freya Mavor), an Englishwoman, carries him through, and he wins over even his harshest opponents by winning the 1956 FA Cup Final, playing on with a broken neck to secure victory. But fate will soon twist the knife for Bert and Margaret, when their love and loyalty to each other is put to the ultimate test. | 120 | Marcus H. Rosenmuller | United Kingdom, Germany | English, German | Festival |
| 2019 | The Mover | No one could have predicted that Žanis Lipke would become a hero. In 1942 Latvia was occupied by German troops, and the repression of Jews began in Riga, the capital. During the day, Žanis worked at the storage facility for the Nazi Luftwaffe. Jews from the ghetto were taken to the factory for forced labor every day. When the Nazis begin killing Rigans, Žanis, being a passionate and fearless man, devised a plan to save the Jews who worked at the factory. In the courtyard of his house, he dug a bunker as their hiding place. His plan could prove lethal both for himself and his wife and son. Literally under the noses of German soldiers, he took more than fifty people to safety. Was Žanis simply a risk taker, or did he have a gift for human compassion even under the most extreme conditions? | 90 | Davis Simanis Jr. | Latvia | Latvian, German, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2019 | The Other Story | Two rebellious young womenâ one fleeing the chaos of secular hedonism for the disciplined comforts of faith; the other desperate to transcend her oppressive religious upbringing for sexual and spiritual freedom, cross paths unexpectedly in Jerusalem, to startling consequences. | 112 | Avi Nesher | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2019 | The Unorthodox | The year is 1983, and Yaakov Cohen, the owner of a Jerusalem printing press, is tired of being pushed around. It seems that he was born on the wrong side, with the wrong family name, and in a moment's decision he decides to establish a Sephardic-ultra-Orthodox list that will run the Jerusalem municipality. He gathers two friends, and together they improvise a campaign, no means, no connections, no money, but with much rage, passion and a sense of justice. | 92 | Eliran Malka | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2019 | On the Map | In 1977, the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team prevailed over CSKA Moscow (known in the West as Red Army), a team that refused to play against Israel. Moments after this highly charged and historical win, Israeli-American basketball hero Tal Brody captured the heart of the nation when he famously said, "Israel is on the map, not just in sport, but in everything." The story of this triumph against all odds is told through the eyes of six American basketball players who joined Maccabi Tel Aviv. | 85 | Dani Menkin | USA & Israel | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2019 | Upside Down Tree | Eva is a Jewish girl who was orphaned during World War II, and raised by an Ukrainian peasant in the early fifties. When a mysterious woman who present herself as her real mother wants to take the girl to Israel, Eva is torn between her adoptive mother to her biological mother. Eventually she decides to join her mother in their joint journey to Israel. A series of strange events make her wonder whether she is really her mother? If not, then who is she? More importantly - why did she take her away from her family? | 82 | Ariel Cohen | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2019 | YidLifeCrisis: The Double Date | Leizer goes on a blind date set up by his mother to find love at a Kosher sushi restaurant. His best friend Chaimie tags along in case the date goes badly, so he can get Leizer out of the difficult situation. As it turns out, they both find the perfect woman (Mayim Bialik), an assertive neurosurgeon seeking a husband. The blind date for Leizer turns into a battle of nebbish proportions. | 6 | Eli Batalion and Jamie Elman | Canada | English, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2019 | A Night at the Garden | Assembled from archive footage, this short documentary details a 'German-American Bund' rally held at the Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. American Nazi leader Fritz Kuhn speaks to the gathered crowd when one man, 26-year-old Isadore Greenbaum, rushes the stage to protest the gathered National socialists. | 7 | Marshall Curry | United States | English | Festival |
| 2019 | A Thousand Kisses | Separated by the fear of prosecution in the Nazi Germany of 1933, a young Jewish couple in Berlin make loose plans to reunite on the safe tropical shores of Brazil. | 15 | Richard Goldgewicht | United States | English | Festival |
| 2019 | Finding Our Voice | This film follows a song leader on his journey to build connection in a country that's divided. We explore the zeitgeist of oral tradition community singing, a re-emerging movement that's deeply rooted in our humanity. The director (and returning filmmaker) is AJFF committee member Wendy Corn! | 6 | Wendy R. Corn | United States | English | Festival |
| 2019 | Egg Cream | "EGG CREAM" is a bittersweet look at memory, history, and the enduring meaning of a beloved chocolate soda drink born in Jewish immigrant neighborhoods at the turn of the 20th century. The egg cream contained neither eggs nor cream, it was a product of necessity and hardship, but also a source of joy and sweetness. Through a tour of egg cream establishments led by a filmmaker and his young daughter, exhaustively researched archival imagery, and even a song by Lou Reed, the film examines the Jewish experience in America and the mythology of a simpler time. | 15 | Nora Miller, Peter Miller | United States | English | Festival |
| 2019 | Mitzvot | A Catholic teen takes a DNA test and discovers he's Jewish. Frightened and feeling alone because his friends don't like Jews, he turns to his coach for help. His coach introduces him to a Holocaust survivor, and he realizes that perhaps he needs new friends. | 7 | Steve Bilich | United States | English | Festival |
| 2019 | The Outer Circle | Midway through a grueling Orthodox conversion, Daniel and his fiancee Katherine are eager to gain the blessing of his intimidatingly large and loud Iraqi Jewish family. At their annual Rosh Hashanah feast, Katherine's natural elegance and 'English English' heritage immediately endears her to them, but it soon becomes apparent that beneath the warm and welcoming atmosphere, some are not ready as others to accept her. | 13 | Adam Baroukh | United Kingdom | English | Festival |
| 2019 | Vishneva, Belarus Soviet Union Poland | "Vishneva, Belarus Soviet Union Poland" is grounded in the oral history testimony of a Holocaust survivor and has been deconstructed by the interviewee's son. Unlike most oral histories that focus on the words of the interviewee, Vishneva uses silent images from the interview superimposed with typed memories that describe the unspoken pain borne by father and son through more than half a century. | 3 | Jake Podber | United States | English | Festival |
| 2019 | You're Invited | After hearing that an elderly woman died alone with no one left to mourn, a college-aged woman shows the beauty and contagious power of selfless kindness through a simple caring act. | 13 | Andrew Kaplan | United States | English | Festival |
| 2018 | A Heartbeat Away | The story of an Israeli pediatric cardiologist sent to Africa to perform lifesaving operations in Tanzania, where every day five children die from heart conditions. Dr. Akiva Tamir and his team examine hundreds of children, of which only a handful can receive the treatment which will save their lives. When 6-year-old Julius arrives to the clinic in critical condition, Dr. Tamir is forced to choose whether to operate on the child, who has very little chances of surviving. Dr. Tamir and his team take the viewers on an emotional rollercoaster as they deal with the most serious question of who to treat and who will be left to die. The experienced physicians find it hard to detach from the emotional bond they share with their small patients. "A Heartbeat Away" is a riveting human drama, swinging on the pendulum between science and faith, hope and despair, life and death, in its center, human doctors who have been thrust to the position of Gods in the midst of Africa. | 55 | Tal Barda, Noam Pinchas | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2018 | An Act of Defiance | In this riveting historical drama, 10 political activists (including Nelson Mandela and his inner circle of Black and Jewish supporters) face a possible death sentence for conspiracy to commit sabotage after they are arrested by the apartheid South African government during a raid in the town of Rivonia during the summer of 1963. Bram Fischer (exceptionally played by Peter Paul Muller), a sympathetic lawyer, risks his career and freedom to defend these men, attempting to hide the fact that he, too, frequently convened on the farm where they were arrested | 123 | Jean van de Velde | Netherlands | English, Afrikaans | Festival |
| 2017 | Blessed | The youngest daughter is getting married but the oldest child gets the blessing from Bubbe. | 16 | Prague Benbenisty | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2018 | Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story | What do the most ravishingly beautiful actress of the 1930s and 40s and the inventor whose concepts were the basis of cell phone and bluetooth technology have in common? They are both Hedy Lamarr, the glamour icon whose ravishing visage was the inspiration for Snow White and Cat Woman and a technological trailblazer who perfected a radio system to throw Nazi torpedoes off course during WWII. Weaving interviews and clips with never-before-heard audio tapes of Hedy speaking on the record about her incredible life, from her beginnings as an Austrian Jewish emigre to her scandalous nude scene in the 1933 film Ecstasy to her glittering Hollywood life to her ground-breaking but completely uncredited inventions to her latter years when she became a recluse, impoverished and almost forgotten, "BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY" brings to light the story of an unusual and accomplished woman, spurned as too beautiful to be smart, but a role model to this day.. | 88 | Alexandra Dean | United States | English | Festival |
| 2018 | Budapest Noir | A murder mystery set in Budapest 1936, just as Hungary was preparing to allign itself with Hitler. A young beautiful girl is found dead and nobody wants to investigate, except Gordon, a crime reporter who has a gut feeling that things are not what they seem. | 95 | Eva Gardos | Hungary | Hungarian | Festival |
| 2018 | Bye Bye Germany | Frankfurt, 1946: David Bermann (Moritz Bliebtreu, "Run Lola Run") is determined to make the most of the ravaged postwar era by recruiting some friends from a displaced persons camp to sell linens at inflated prices to unsuspecting Germans. Most of the group have a simple motivation: to raise the money necessary to leave Germany behind and move on to the United States. But David has a secret, and the beautiful American Army investigator Sara Simon (Antje Traue, "Man of Steel") is determined to uncover it. Peppered with Yiddish flavor, this picaresque comedy-drama tells the untold story of the Jewish men and woman whose grit allowed them to succeed in postwar Germany against all odds, and ultimately paved the way for reconciliation. | 102 | Sam Garbarski | Germany | German, English | Festival |
| 2018 | Funny Girl | The life of Fanny Brice, famed comedienne and entertainer of the early 1900s. We see her rise to fame as a Ziegfeld girl, her subsequent career, and her personal life, particularly her relationship with Nick Arnstein. | 151 | William Wyler | United States | English | Festival |
| 2018 | Itzhak | If there's anyone who personifies the resilience, the vision, and ultimately the contribution of the Jewish people, it's Itzhak Perlman. The violin is Perlman's chosen instrument, the vehicle he has used to overcome his own challenges and express himself to the world. In Perlman and his music, we hear the story of obstacles and survival, we trace the path of the Jewish people from the chaos of Europe to the promise of Israel, and we see the comfort of home and family and witness how humor and talent combine with discipline and drive. We hear his tales of growing up as the child of Polish survivors, where his mastery of the instrument takes him from his small neighborhood in Tel Aviv to the world's most prominent stages , and we hear his perspective on music and life. Through Itzhak Perlman, we're able to see an artist at work, a modern Jewish family embracing its heritage while living in a world of changing expectations, and how the legacy of both the Jewish people and the violin are knitted together in one remarkable human being. | 83 | Alison Chernick | United States, Israel | English | Festival |
| 2018 | Kavod Gadol | Daniel gets a wonderful surprise from his father for his Bar Mitzvah party, a sheep, to slaughter. Daniel is not happy with the gift and tries everything he can to get rid of the sheep, from giving it away, releasing, it and even calling the police to help. | 10 | Ori Szternfeld | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2018 | Pirate Captain Toledano | "The Pirate Captain Toledano" is the world's first film set in the little-known world of Jewish piracy in the Caribbean. It brings to life the story of refugees from the Inquisition who found a way to strike back against Spain. | 10 | Arnon Shorr | USA | English, Spanish | Festival |
| 2018 | Sammy Davis Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me | Sammy Davis, Jr. had the kind of career that was indisputably legendary, so vast and multi-faceted that it was dizzying in its scope and scale. And yet, his life was complex, complicated, and contradictory. Davis strove to achieve the American Dream in a time of racial prejudice and shifting political territory. He was the veteran of increasingly outdated show business traditions, trying to stay relevant; he frequently found himself bracketed by the bigotry of white America and the distaste of black America; he was the most public black figure to embrace Judaism, thereby yoking his identity to another persecuted minority. | 100 | Sam Pollard | USA | English | Festival |
| 2018 | Shalom Bollywood | SHALOM BOLLYWOOD reveals the unlikely story of the 2000-year-old Indian Jewish community and its formative place in shaping the world's largest film industry. | 76 | Danny Ben-Moshe | Australia, India | English, Hindi | Festival |
| 2018 | Shoelaces (Laces) | "Laces" tells the story of a complicated relationship between an aging father and his special-needs son, whom he abandoned while he was still a young boy. Reuben's (60) kidneys are failing, and his son Gadi (35), wants to donate one of his own kidneys to help save his father's life. However, the transplant committee objects to the procedure, claiming that Rueben, acting as Gadi's sole legal guardian, does not have the right to authorize such an invasive procedure. Gadi, who recently lost his mother, is afraid of losing his father as well. He feels he finally has the chance to do something meaningful; to become a man and stand on his own. He's furious with the committee's decision and sets out to fight for his right to save his father's life. Through the film's portrayal of a relationship full of love, rejection, and co-dependency, it manages to shed some light and question the importance of human life, human connection, and if life is even possible without either one of them. | 98 | Michael Rozenbaum & Marek Rozenbaum | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2018 | The Cakemaker | Thomas, a young and talented German baker, is having an affair with Oren, an Israeli married man who dies in a car crash. Thomas travels to Jerusalem seeking answers. Keeping his secret for himself, he starts working for Anat, his lover's widow, who owns a small cafe Although not fully kosher and despised by the religious, his delicious cakes turn the place into a city attraction. Finding himself involved in Anat's life in a way far beyond his anticipation, Thomas will stretch his lie to a point of no return. | 104 | Ofir Raul Graizer | Israel, Germany | German, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2018 | The Interpreter | .80-year-old Ali Ungar comes across a book by a former SS officer describing his wartime activities in Slovakia. He realizes that his parents were executed by him. He sets out to take revenge but finds instead the officer's 70-year-old son, Georg, a retired teacher. Georg, who had avoided his father all his life, decides to find out more about him and offers Ali to be his interpreter. The two old men, opposites in all ways, embark on a bittersweet journey to meet surviving witnesses of the wartime tragedy. They discover a country eager to forget its past. They realize that their memories are fragments mixed with their imagination and interpretation. They connect in silence and manage to discover their own identities. | 113 | Martin Sulik | Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria | German, Russian, Slovak | Festival |
| 2018 | The Invisibles | "The Invisibles" tells the stories of four survivors, interweaving their testimony with highly accomplished dramatizations, an unusual hybrid approach that brings edge-of-the-seat suspense to their years spent underground. The two men and two women whose stories unfold are well chosen, and their younger selves are sensitively portrayed: Cioma is an art student who uses his drafting skills to forge passports in exchange for food ration cards; Hanni dyes her hair blond and tries to pass as Aryan; teenager Eugen is handed to a succession of sympathetic Communist families; and Ruth must resort to roaming the streets before being taken in by a surprising protector. If their stories sound contrived, "The Invisibles" makes their veracity all the more stunning. | 110 | Claus Rafle | Germany | German | Festival |
| 2018 | The Last Supper (Das letzte Mahl) | On the day Hitler assumes power, an affluent German-Jewish family comes together for dinner. Most of them, like many Germans at the time, do not take the Nazis seriously. When Leah announces her plans to emigrate to Palestine, her family talks her down. But when Michael indicates he's actually an admirer of the National Socialist Movement, the family is on the brink of being torn apart. A deeply personal and intimate chamber play. | 83 | Florian Frerichs | Germany | German | Festival |
| 2018 | The Museum | A documentary collage depicting the life and art of the Israel Museum. | 74 | Ran Tal | Israel | Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2018 | The Samuel Project | Eli, an outcast teen, connects with his isolated grandfather Samuel for the first time and uncovers his surprising past, when he makes his grandpa the subject of an animated art project for school. | 93 | Marc Fusco | United States | English | Festival |
| 2018 | The Testament | Yoel, a senior Holocaust researcher, is in the midst of a widely covered legal battle with powerful forces in Austria, concerning a brutal massacre of Jews that took place toward the end of WWII in the village of Lensdorf. An influential family of industrialists on whose land the murder took place is planning to build a real estate project on the very same land. Yoel suspects that their aim is to bury the affair for good but has trouble finding the conclusive evidence that would stop the project., While investigating the incident Yoel examines classified testimonies of Holocaust survivors, and to his shock and surprise he finds a testimony given by his mother, a testimony he didn't know existed. In her testimony she confesses to a substantial secret from her past. Yoel, who's conducting a double-investigation, personal and scientific, is trapped between walls of silence, on one side, denial of the Holocaust on the part of the villagers, and on the other, his mother's silence regarding her past. As an historian with an unshakeable commitment to the truth, he decides to continue his investigations, even at the cost of ruining his personal and professional life. | 96 | Amichai Greenberg | Israel | Hebrew, German, English, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2018 | Wendy's Shabbat | Shabbat dinner gatherings for these Jewish senior citizens is at the Wendy's fast food restaurant where they say prayers and light candles over hamburgers and fries. | 10 | Rachel Myers | United States | English | Festival |
| 2018 | Who Sank Your Ships? | Yuli, a petite military photographer, is in love with Michael. Michael has a girlfriend. One night, Yuli witnesses a harsh fight between them and decides to follow Michael. Through Yuli's dreamy eyes, a dreary military night becomes magical. | 24 | Ella Kohn | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2017 | 1945 | In this astonishingly haunting film, deep undercurrents run beneath the simple surface in a quaint village that's ultimately forced to face up to its "ill-gotten gains" from the Second World War. On a sweltering August day in 1945, villagers prepare for the wedding of the town clerk's son. Meanwhile, two Orthodox Jews arrive at the village train station with mysterious boxes labeled "fragrances." The town clerk fears the men may be heirs of the village's deported Jews and expects them to demand their illegally acquired property back, originally lost during the Second World War. Other villagers are afraid more survivors will come, posing a threat to the property and possessions they have claimed as their own. | 91 | Ferenc Torok | Hungary | Hungarian | Festival |
| 2017 | Abuele | Adam's older brother was killed in a car crash a year ago. His family has not been the same since. As his parents struggle to cope with their grief, Adam (10), plagued with guilt over his brother's death, feels he is all alone in the world. But everything changes the day he meets Abulele. The Abulele are ancient monsters, bear-sized. Local legends tell that they are extremely dangerous, but in fact, they turn out to be quite friendly and playful creatures. Abulele quickly becomes Adam's best and most secret friend. Together, they outsmart Adam's mean schoolteacher and beat the class bullies. But Adam's parents start to suspect he is harboring a secret. And when a government, Special Forces unit called "Thunder" appears in the neighborhood on a mission to capture Abulele, things go from bad to worse. In order to save his best friend, Adam will have to get Abulele back home to its family, and to do so, he will need to put the past behind him and realize that when you truly love someone, you are never really alone. | 90 | Jonathan Geva | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2017 | Across The Waters | Enjoying the nightlife of 1943 Copenhagen, jazz guitarist Arne Itkin (David Dencik, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy") is seemingly immune to the hardships of war, as the Danish government opts for a compliant relationship with Nazi Germany. He is initially skeptical when his terrified wife Miriam (Danica Curcic) hears rumors of the roundup and deportation of Danish Jews. An overnight raid, however, forces the couple to flee their home with five-year-old son Jakob (Anton Dalgard Guleryuz). Aided by a church pastor and underground resistance, they set out on a journey for the fishing village of Gilleleje, where refugees await passage to Sweden by boat. Amidst lurking danger from the Gestapo and their collaborators, the family puts its fate in the hands of strangers whose allegiance and motives are not always clear. | 95 | Nicolo Donato | Denmark | Danish | Festival |
| 2017 | Aida's Secrets | The tale begins with a retired blind landscaper in Israel and his quest for the brother he never knew he had and the mother he barely knew. "Two brothers, Izak and Shepsel, were born in a displaced persons camp after World War II. They lived their entire lives in the shadow of secrets kept from them by the people closest to them. The brothers were separated as babies, and neither was told the other existed. An investigation into the mysterious history of their birth family led to an amazing reunion after six decades. The film offers a rare glimpse into the displaced persons camps in post World War II Germany, showing the vibrant and sometime wild social life that flourished among the young survivors. This period has hardly been dealt with on the screen until now." | 90 | Alon Schwarz, Saul Schwarz | Canada, Germany, United States | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2017 | Bagels in the Blood | Nestled between shops in a residential neighborhood in French Montreal lies a quiet brownstone building, an old converted house with a wood fired oven in the back. Irwin Shalafman, third-generation owner of famous bagel shop Fairmount Bagel, shows us how it all started. | 5 | Jonathan Keijser and Daniel Beresh | Canada | English | Festival |
| 2017 | Cloudy Sunday | Set in Thessaloniki during the German occupation in 1943, the film tells the story of the forbidden love between Estrea, a young Jewish girl, and Giorgos, the brother-in-law of the famed composer Vassilis Tsitsanis. Much of the action takes place in and around the ouzeri owned by the then 28-year-old Tsitsanis at a time when he had reached his peak as a composer. In fact, the film's English title, "CLOUDY SUNDAY," references Tsitsanis' beloved classic Synnefisameni Kyriaki, one of the songs featured in the movie. | 113 | Manousos Manousakis | Greece | Greek | Festival |
| 2017 | Dear Cancer: Love Stacy | Stacy Middleman, a young mother, wife, and BRCA2 gene carrier, documents with courage and candor her challenging journey while having breast cancer a second time, by writing "letters to cancer" that she shares with people worldwide on her Facebook page. Winner of the Best Short at the 2017 California Women's Film Festival. | 16 | Stacey Summers | USA | English | Festival |
| 2017 | Denial | Acclaimed writer and historian Deborah E. Lipstadt must battle for historical truth to prove the Holocaust actually occurred when David Irving, a renowned denier, sues her for libel. | 109 | Mick Jackson | UK, USA | English, German, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2017 | Faithkeepers | In the birthplace of Christianity, Christians and other minorities are being persecuted, driven and wiped out, and their places of worship are being destroyed. Faithkeepers is an upcoming documentary film about the violent persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East. The film features exclusive footage and testimonials of Christians, Baha'i, Yazidis, Jews, and other minority refugees, and an historical context of the persecution in the region. "Faithkeepers", the movie and the movement, will awaken, enlighten, and inspire all people of faith to stand up and take action. | 60 | Micah Smith | United States, Israel, Canada | English | Festival |
| 2017 | Fanny's Journey | Based on a true story, "FANNY's JOURNEY" is an incredible tale of bravery, strength and survival, a story of a daring young girl who will stop at nothing and fear no one. In 1943, 13-year-old Fanny and her younger sisters were sent from their home in France to an Italian foster home for Jewish children. When the Nazis arrive in Italy, their caretakers desperately organize the departure of the children to Switzerland. When they are suddenly left on their own, these 11 children do the impossible and reach the Swiss border to freedom. | 94 | Lola Doillon | France/Belgium | French | Festival |
| 2017 | Habesha | Ethiopian Jews share their personal firsthand accounts of life in the Holy Land. Produced as part of the Jerusalem Film Workshop for young filmmakers. | 13 | Naphtali Rosenberg | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2017 | HaMavdil | Machane Yehuda, a market that never sleeps; popular with locals and tourists alike. The characters and the ambience are unrivalled, a poem to those of the old generation and the new, those who work there and those who come to shop, eat, and party. This short student film is about the famous Jerusalem shuk and its transition each day from a bustling, colorful marketplace filled with noisy vendors and a melange of shoppers, to a unique nightlife center, with independent bars, eclectic restaurants, and live music haunts. The film was selected from this year's Jerusalem Film Workshop, a six week program for young filmmakers from around the world. | 14 | Erik Hirschhorn | Israel | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2017 | Harmonia | "Harmonia" is an award-winning and musically enchanting modern retelling of the biblical triangle between the childless Abraham and Sarah and young Hagar. In this adaptation, Sarah is the harpist of the Jerusalem Philharmonic; Abraham is its almighty conductor. When Hagar, a young Palestinian horn player, joins the Orchestra, she bonds with Sarah, and a unique friendship evolves between the two women. Hagar, feeling Sarah's pain from not having children, offers to have a baby for her from Abraham, shaking the thin balance in the family. The biblical adaptation later develops to an emotional clash between the firstborn son Ben, a 12-year-old prodigal pianist, and his two mothers. Harmonia uncovers the metaphoric emotional roots from the viewpoint of the women involved in the ancient conflict between the two peoples living in Jerusalem. | 97 | Ori Sivan | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2017 | Harold and Lillian A Hollywood Love Story | Harold and Lillian eloped to Hollywood in 1947, where they became the film industry's secret weapons. Nobody talked about them, but everybody wanted them. Theirs is the greatest story never told-until now. | 94 | Daniel Raim | USA | English | Festival |
| 2017 | How to Ride an Elevator | While he was participating in the Jerusalem Film Workshop last summer, Buffalo filmmaker Salvatore Natale produced this short about the conflicted life of a gay Hasidic Jewish man. | 11 | Hannah Skolnik | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2017 | Inge | Inge Stanton thought she would never return to her hometown. The very thought of doing so made her shudder. Why? Because Inge grew up as a Jewish girl in Nazi Germany, a place filled with danger and uncertainty for her and her entire family. Now it is July 2016, and Inge has decided to go back to the place that tried to kill her, but she is not alone, her children and grandchildren are by her side. Walking through Nuremberg, seeing the Buchenwald concentration camp, visiting her home town's destroyed Jewish cemetery, and retracing the footsteps of her childhood, Inge brings her family and her audience on a journey through time, making witnesses out of all of us. | 5 | Rachel Schlesinger | USA | English | Festival |
| 2017 | Jerusalem if I Forget You | Street art on the walls of Jerusalem reflecting life and the city. | 13 | Boyoung Kim | Israel | Engish | Festival |
| 2017 | Keep Quiet | Csanad Szegedi, the founder of an anti-Semitic group, finds out he has Jewish relatives. He spends three years learning to embrace his heritage while confronting his past. | 92 | Sam Blair, Joseph Martin | UK, Hungary | Hungarian | Festival |
| 2017 | Muktzeh | Vladimir, a Russian immigrant to Israel, begins to explore his Jewish roots. But his attempts to forge a Jewish identity prove to be painful and difficult. | 28 | Alon Rabinovich | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2017 | Outsider | A short documentary about a young man named Avi, who left the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in which he was raised. A personal first-person survey of the importance of community, this film will explore Avi's transition from Orthodox Judaism into modern and secular society. Combined with voiceover and relevant images of Jerusalem scenes, the film contrasts Avi's place in his old community with his new community of Hillel, an organization that helps former Orthodox Jews integrate into contemporary Israeli life. | 12 | Anna Kiraly | Israel | English | Festival |
| 2017 | Restoring Tomorrow | In these divided times, religious institutions are losing young members and even closing their doors at an alarming rate. Director Aaron Wolf's personal journey of rediscovery comes alive in "Restoring Tomorrow," a universal story of hope, as a treasured local temple near demise is lifted up by a community's determination to achieve the impossible. Wolf's journey explores how, when any community puts their mind to it, the impossible becomes possible. Wilshire Boulevard Temple, a Los Angeles treasure built by the original Hollywood moguls, needs to raise millions to restore its majesty and vibrancy, thus also restoring the future of the Jewish community, the greater Los Angeles community, and on a personal level, Wolf himself. | 82 | Aaron Wolf | USA | Engish | Festival |
| 2017 | Revital is an Alien | Gabriela is thrilled when she finds a baby alien in the forest, she always dreamed of having a daughter. She calls the baby Revital. As Revital grows and develops into a little alien girl, she finds it harder and harder to exist in a world so different from her. Gabriela does everything she can to put her daughter at ease and make her happy. But Revital remains sad. When an opportunity for a different life comes along, their love is put to the test. | 16 | Gan De Lange | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2017 | Rosenwald | "Rosenwald," by Aviva Kempner, is a documentary about how Chicago philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, the son of an immigrant peddler who rose to head Sears, partnered with Booker T. Washington to build 5,400 Southern schools in African-American communities in the early 1900s during the Jim Crow era. Rosenwald also built YMCAs and housing for African Americans to address the pressing needs of the Great Migration. The Rosenwald Fund supported great artists like Marian Anderson, Woody Guthrie, Langston Hughes, Gordon Parks, and Jacob Lawrence. Among those interviewed are civil rights leaders Julian Bond, Ben Jealous, and Congressman John Lewis; columnists Eugene Robinson and Clarence Page; Cokie Roberts, Rabbi David Saperstein, Rosenwald school alumni writer Maya Angelou, and director George C. Wolfe and Rosenwald relatives. | 100 | Aviva Kempner | USA | English | Festival |
| 2017 | The Dream Factory | Ben is a 35-year-old divorcee and failing comic book artist who works in an office. He and his 8-year-old daughter Maya go on quest into the Dream Factory to find his broken dream and fix it. | 19 | Shira Gabai | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2017 | The Funeral | Arnold Cowan is not a religious man. He doesn't believe in any of that nonsense. Which is a bit of a problem because his son wants a proper bar mitzvah, complete with synagogue service and everything done according to Jewish tradition. Arnold's mother pulls him in one direction, and his wife pulls him in the other. But when a family tragedy brings everyone together, it has consequences no one quite expects. | 14 | Nick Green | UK | English | Festival |
| 2017 | The Great Dictator | Twenty years after the end of WWI in which the nation of Tomainia was on the losing side, Adenoid Hynkel has risen to power as the ruthless dictator of the country. He believes in a pure Aryan state and the decimation of the Jews. This situation is unknown to a simple Jewish-Tomainian barber who has since been hospitalized, the result of a WWI battle. Upon his release, the barber, who had been suffering from memory loss about the war, is shown the new persecuted life of the Jews by many living in the Jewish ghetto, including a washerwoman named Hannah, with whom he begins a relationship. The barber is ultimately spared such persecution by Commander Schultz, whom he saved in that WWI battle. The lives of all Jews in Tomainia are eventually spared with a policy shift by Hynkel himself, who is doing so for ulterior motives. But those motives include a desire for world domination, starting with the invasion of neighboring Osterlich, which may be threatened by Benzino Napaloni, the dictator of neighboring Bacteria. Ultimately Schultz, who has turned traitor against Hynkel's regime, and the barber may be able to join forces to take control of the situation, using Schultz's inside knowledge of the regime's workings and the barber's uncanny resemblance to one of those in power. | 85 | Charles Chaplin | USA | English, Esperanto | Festival |
| 2017 | The Last Laugh | The Last Laugh pairs clips from films, performances, and interviews with top comedians and prominent Jewish leaders (including Mel Brooks, Sarah Silverman, Joan Rivers, Louis C.K., Chris Rock, Abraham Foxman, and Shalom Auslander) to ask the ultimate taboo question: Can the Holocaust be funny? | 88 | Ferne Pearlstein | USA | English | Festival |
| 2017 | The Little Dictator | Professor Yossi Kleinmann, a religious Jew, gets stuck with a calamitous mustache at the 90th birthday party of his wife's grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. The rest is history. | 28 | Nurith Cohn | Israel | Hebrew, German | Festival |
| 2017 | The Pickle Recipe | Desperate for cash, a down-on-his-luck party emcee is corrupted by his shameless uncle to steal his grandmother's top secret pickle recipe. | 97 | Michael Manasseri | USA | English | Festival |
| 2017 | The Women's Balcony | An accident during a bar mitzvah celebration leads to a gender rift in a devout Orthodox community in Jerusalem, in this rousing, good-hearted tale about women speaking truth to patriarchal power.When the women's balcony in an Orthodox synagogue collapses, leaving the rabbi's wife in a coma and the rabbi in shock, the congregation falls into crisis. Charismatic young Rabbi David appears to be a savior after the accident, but slowly starts pushing his fundamentalist ways and tries to take control. This tests the women's friendships and creates an almost Lysistrata-type rift between the community's women and men. | 97 | Shlomit Nehama, Emil Ben-Shimon | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2017 | Wall, Crevice, Tear | Footage on the Women's side of the Western Wall of prayers to God | 10 | Tehila Raanan | Israel | None | Festival |
| 2017 | Wolyn (Hatred) | Despite being in love with a Ukrainian boy from the same village, a Polish girl named Zosia is forced into marrying a wealthy widower. Soon World War II begins and ethnic tensions arise. Amidst the chaos of war, Zosia tries to survive. | 150 | Wojciech Smarzowski | Poland | Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Yiddish, German | Festival |
| 2016 | 70 Hester Street | "70 HESTER STREET" is about director Casimir Nozkowski's childhood home, all childhood homes, and the lives of old buildings. "The 140-year-old building I grew up in was a former synagogue, whiskey still, raincoat factory, and art studio my parents rented for 45 years. When the building was sold in 2012, I started filming it just as my parents moved out. I wanted to capture all the history the building contained before its new owner could erase it. I filmed my neighborhood where countless lives had passed through and examined that legacy, the threat of development bearing down on it." | 10 | Casimir Nozkowski | USA | English | Festival |
| 2016 | A Blind Hero: The Love of Otto Weidt | "A Blind Hero" depicts Otto Weidt's story as told by award-winning journalist and author Inge Deutschkron, who tells the incredible tale of Weidt's efforts to save her and the rest of his employees from the Nazis, including Alice Licht, the love of Otto Weidt's life. | 90 | Kai Christiansen | Israel | German, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2016 | A Borrowed Identify | Eyad, a boy from an Arab village, has the opportunity to attend a prestigious boarding school in Jerusalem. Eyad knows love and disappointment, and he makes a decision that will alter the course of his life forever. | 104 | Eran Riklis | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2016 | A Grain of Truth | Once the star of the Warsaw prosecutors' office, Teodor Szacki (Polish Academy Award-winning actor Robert Więckiewicz) has ended his career and marriage to start a new life in a sleepy southeast Polish town. Seen as an outsider by the close-knit community, he faces suspicion when called in to get to the bottom of the brutal murder of a well-known social activist, her body discovered outside a former synagogue. As the trail of victims grows, and the killer remains elusive, clues point to a mysterious connection with historical myths of blood libel. Aided by a veteran police detective (Jerzy Trela), reluctant female prosecutor (Magdalena Walach), and local rabbi (Zohar Strauss), Teodor must unravel the painful tangle of Polish-Jewish relations and solve the enigmatic case while facing a rising tide of public and media hysteria. Based on the bestselling novel by Polish author Zygmunt Miłoszewski and directed by Borys Lankosz, "A GRAIN OF TRUTH" is a masterfully constructed whodunit that pits the forces of enlightenment against monstrous primeval superstitions. | 110 | Borys Lankosz | Poland | Polish | Festival |
| 2016 | A Tale of Love and Darkness | A drama based on the memoir of Amos Oz, a writer, journalist, and advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. | 95 | Natalie Portman | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2016 | And Then, Violence | Rebecca, 22, is a secular Jewish Parisian Law student. After the recent terror attacks of January, which hit the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, a French Police officer, and clients of a Kosher supermarket in Paris, she tries to reconnect with Jonathan, 23, her Jewish ex-boyfriend, who's a bit more religious than her and who's just moved back to Paris after studying in the US. Their daily lives are constantly interrupted by the violence and the ambient anti-Semitism which have infiltrated French society over the past few years. Stuck in between their fear, living as Jews in France, their will to leave for a safer place, and their strong ties to a country they have so dearly loved for generations, Rebecca, Jonathan, and their families wonder what happened to the French Republic, once a symbol of freedom, equality, and fraternity; now a broken system where communities curl up on themselves, allowing violence and hate to resurface. For the first time in its history, France has had to resort to protecting Jewish schools and synagogues with armed soldiers. What happened to the fraternity French people showcased to the World, after the attacks, in the largest demonstration since the liberation of Paris in 1944? Rebecca and her family once felt French first, but it seems that they are constantly reminded of their Jewish identity. An inner struggle is taking place within French society and throughout Europe, painfully reopening scars of World War II. | 15 | Jordan Goldnadel | France | French | Festival |
| 2016 | Atomic Falafel | Two girls from nuclear towns in Israel and Iran spill their countries most valuable secrets on Facebook while trying to prevent a nuclear crisis. | 100 | Dror Shaul | Israel, New Zealand, Germany | Hebrew, English, Persian | Festival |
| 2016 | Bacon & God's Wrath | A 90-year-old Jewish woman reflects on her life's experiences as she prepares to try bacon for the first time. | 9 | Sol Friedman | Canada | English | Festival |
| 2016 | Besa : The Promise | Besa: The Promise is the remarkable story of the Muslim men and women of Albania who saved the lives of nearly 2,000 Jews during World War II. Their stories are told through the prism of two men, one an Albanian Muslim, the other an American Jew, and the different, but equally remarkable, journeys that each must undertake. | 90 | Rachel Goslins | USA | English | Festival |
| 2016 | Bogdan's Journey | A Catholic Pole, determined to heal a historical wound, launches a crusade to reconcile Poles and Jews over a massacre that happened 69 years ago. | 83 | Michal Jaskulski, Lawrence Loewinger | United States, Poland | English, Polish | Festival |
| 2016 | Dough | An old Jewish baker struggles to keep his business afloat until his young Muslim apprentice accidentally drops cannabis in the dough and sends sales sky high. | 94 | John Goldschmidt | UK, Hungary | English | Festival |
| 2016 | East Jerusalem/West Jerusalem | In Palestinian East Jerusalem, Singer-Songwriter David Broza records a new album with American, Palestinian and Israeli musicians in defiance of the Middle East's dark realities. | 80 | Henrique Cymerman, Erez Miller | Israel | English | Festival |
| 2016 | Every Face Has A Name | What is it like to be captured during war and mistaken for being a spy? How is it to live six years in hiding dressed like a girl, when you are a young boy? What happens when you have experienced such gruesome things, that you are trying to keep your own memory away? In "Every face has a Name," Elsie, Bernard, Nerit, and other survivors from the 2nd World War tell their stories as they discover themselves in an archive reel shot on April 28, 1945, the day they were finally being liberated from the German camps. In the archive film,they are anonymous faces in large crowds of refugees. But they all have a name. And they all have a story to tell. Stories about escape, survival and starting life again. Just like the many stories we hear about refugees in Europe today. | 73 | Magnus Gertten | Sweden | Swedish, Polish, Norwegian, English | Festival |
| 2016 | Hummus! (The Movie) | An eclectic, touching film about Hummus, the delicious super-food sweeping across America. Secret recipes, a Guinness World Record, and the power of Hummus to bring Muslims, Christians, and Jews together, in the Middle East, America, and around the world. | 59 | Oren Rosenfeld | United States, Israel | English, Arabic, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2016 | Jerry Lewis: Man Behind The Clown | Since the early days, Jerry Lewis, in the line of Chaplin, Keaton, and Laurel, had the masses laughing with his visual gags, pantomime sketches, and signature slapstick humor. Yet Lewis was far more than just a clown. He was also a groundbreaking filmmaker whose unquenchable curiosity led him to write, produce, stage, and direct many of the films he appeared in, resulting in such adored classics as "The Bellboy," "The Ladies Man," "The Errand Boy," and "The Nutty Professor." By becoming a "total filmmaker," Lewis surpassed expectations as a comic performer and emerged as a driving force in Hollywood. He broke boundaries with his technical innovations, unique voice, and keen visual eye, even garnering respect and praise overseas. However, American critics and the cultural elite tended to reject his abrasive art. While they viewed Lewis as nothing more than just a clown, others like the French recognized him as a true auteur, giving rise to questions that have perplexed American pop culture for over 50 years: Why do Europeans love Jerry Lewis? What is this inexplicable aversion Americans have towards him? Is he just a brash, anything-for-yuks buffoon? Or is he a creative genius? Who is the man behind the clown? | 60 | Gregory Monro | France, USA | French, English | Festival |
| 2016 | Joe's Violin | In the short documentary "Joe's Violin," a 91-year-old Polish Holocaust survivor donates his violin of 70 years to a local instrument drive, changing the life of a 12-year-old schoolgirl from the nation's poorest congressional district, and unexpectedly, his own. "Joe's Violin" illuminates the immense power of music to provide comfort, evoke memory, and connect people across generations. | 25 | Kahane Cooperman | USA | English | Festival |
| 2016 | Mekonen: The Journey of an African Jew | The film follows the backstory and personal journey of Mekonen Abebe, a young African-Israeli Jew, once a young shepherd in Africa and now a commander in the Israeli Defense Forces. Mekonen is one of many brave young men and women drafted into compulsory service in the IDF, to defend their homeland and the liberal values of democracy, freedom and equality. Born and raised in an Ethiopian village, Mekonen was a 12-year-old shepherd when his father died suddenly, less than a day before his family was to move to Israel. The film accompanies Mekonen back to Africa on an emotional journey. He explores his roots, makes peace with his past and embraces his future in Israel. After a difficult adjustment period in Israel, Mekonen was fortunate to attend the Hodayot High School, which educates children from troubled backgrounds and helps integrate them into Israeli society. Mekonen became a decorated officer in the IDF, while staying true to his Ethiopian roots and culture. | 43 | Rebecca Shore | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2016 | Orchestra of Exiles | Some stories get lost in the turmoil of their times. It is often only in retrospect that we can discover the true shapers of history. One such man is the prodigious Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman. "Orchestra of Exiles" explores this great man's 4-year odyssey, which culminates in the founding of the orchestra that would become the Israel Philharmonic. His fascinating story touches many of the major themes of the 20th century, and the unfolding drama of his life is riveting. During the darkest days of a Europe being torn apart by anti- Semitism and Nazi aggression, Huberman's extraordinary efforts saved hundreds of Jewish families from the approaching Holocaust, and his achievements changed the landscape of cultural history. Before the Nazis came to power, Huberman was focused only on building his own monumental career, but witnessing Hitler's agenda was a call to action that Huberman could not ignore. Huberman's personal transformation and subsequent heroic struggle to get Jewish musicians out of Europe to found this orchestra will be at the heart of this film. | 85 | Josh Aronson | USA, Israel | English | Festival |
| 2016 | Raise the Roof | They set out to reconstruct a lost synagogue. They recovered a lost world. | 85 | Yari Wolinsky | USA | English | Festival |
| 2016 | Remember | With the aid of a fellow Auschwitz survivor and a hand-written letter, an elderly man with dementia goes in search of the person responsible for the death of his family. | 95 | Atom Egoyan | Canada | English | Festival |
| 2016 | Sabena Hijacking , My Version | "Sabena Hijacking - My Version" is a powerful, suspenseful docu-drama based on previously undiscovered audio recordings of the former pilot, Captain Reginald Levy. Captain Levy (now deceased) was in command of Sabena Flight 571 from Brussels, Belgium to Tel Aviv, Israel on 8 May 1972, when it was hijacked by four members from "Black September." the armed wing of Fatah or Palestine Liberalization Organization. | 104 | Rani Sa'ar | Israel | English, Hebrew, Arabic, French | Festival |
| 2016 | The Frisco Kid | A Polish rabbi wanders through the Old West on his way to lead a synagogue in San Francisco. On the way he is nearly burnt at the stake by Indians and almost killed by outlaws. | 99 | Robert Aldrich | USA | English, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2016 | The Last Blintz | The closing of the The Cafe Edison (aka The Polish Tea Room) is not just a story about another famous show business haunt shutting its doors, which it is, big time, it's an American Dream-come-true story about a multi-generational, big-hearted, mom-and-pop family business that is tragically and prematurely coming to an end. It's also about gentrification on steroids and all-consuming greed. It's about the heart, soul, authenticity, and distinctiveness of cities globally being flagrantly ripped away for yet another impersonal, cookie-cutter, corporate chain. It's too late for The Cafe Edison... but, looking to the future, "THE LAST BLINTZ" is an impassioned plea for 'progress' that honors the past, protects the future, and preserves the heart and culture of our great cities...before there's nothing left. | 25 | Dori Berinstein | USA | English | Festival |
| 2016 | The Man Who Shot Hollywood | Jack Pashkovsky lived a in town lit up by a thousand stars. He practiced his art anonymously and, when he died at the age of 89, left behind a collection of 400 Hollywood star portraits never seen before. | 0:12:00 | Barry Avrich | Canada | English | Festival |
| 2016 | To Life: (A La Vie) | Veteran French writer/director Jean-Jacques Zilbermann ("He's My Girl," "Man is a Woman," "Not Everybody's Lucky Enough to Have Communist Parents") sets his engaging new drama in postwar Paris where Helene (Julie Depardieu), a young Auschwitz survivor, rebuilds her life while searching for her friends Lily and Rose (Johanna ter Steege, Suzanne Clement). When the women are finally reunited, they share a watershed vacation in the seaside town of Berck-Plage, enjoying the intimacies of life, love,and faith. This emotionally complex film about the sustaining power of womens' friendship was inspired by the director's mother and her annual vacation with the friends she made in the camps. | 104 | Jean-Jacques Zilbermann | France | French | Festival |
| 2016 | Torah Treasures and Curious Trash | Jo Milgrom, an 87-year-old artist, scavenges Jerusalem dumpsters for choice junk that she combines with worn-out Jewish ritual objects. Armed with a glue gun, Jo challenges the religious establishment by juxtaposing the sacred and the mundane in her assemblage. She calls her work "visual midrash," referencing the Jewish literary tradition of supplementing the biblical narrative with commentary, often in the form of colorful homilies. Traditional midrash was written from the third to the 12th centuries, but Milgrom believes there's just a place for creative midrash today. | 23 | Paula Weiman-Kelman | Israel | English | Festival |
| 2015 | Atalle | Her classmates think she's Moroccan, but her family came from Greece. Can this young Israeli participate in her class's Holocaust remembrance project? | 7 | Maya Sarfaty | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2015 | Belle and Sebastian | A beloved story since the 1960s television series introduced resourceful young Sebastian and the giant mountain sheepdog he tames and calls Belle, this heartwarming new feature film is set during WWII in the snowy Alps of occupied France, on the border of Switzerland. Sebastian, lonely and dreaming of the day his mother will return from America for him, befriends "the beast" the local farmers are convinced is killing their sheep, an enormous yet gentle sheepdog who quickly becomes the boy's best friend and protector. With Nazis in the village rooting out the resistance fighters helping Jewish refugees cross the border, Belle and Sebastian's loyalty, to each other and the village that's embraced them both, will be put to the test. | 104 | Nicolas Vanier | France | French | Festival |
| 2015 | Beneath the Helmet: From High School to Home Front | "Beneath the Helmet: From High School to the Home Front" is a coming of age story that highlights five young Israeli high school graduates who are drafted into the army to defend their country. At the age of 18, away from their houses, family, and friends, these young individuals undergo a demanding journey, revealing the core of who they are and who they want to be. From the creators of the PBS-featured documentary film "Israel Inside: How a Small Nation Makes a Big Difference," the film "Beneath the Helmet" illustrates how these young men and women are protecting not only their homes, but the shared values of peace, equality, opportunity, democracy, religious tolerance, and women's rights. The lessons they learn along the way are lessons that can be adapted, understood, and appreciated by everyone. | 80 | Wayne Kopping | USA | English | Festival |
| 2015 | Broken Branches | "Broken Branches" is an animated documentary about loss, family, and hope. Michal Rechter was only 14 years old when, on the eve of the Second World War, she left her family in Poland and travelled to Israel. Now, at the age of 92, she tells her story to her granddaughter, the film's director, who brings her grandmother's memories to life in colorful animation. Michal shows us essays she wrote as a schoolgirl in Poland. One essay describes "The Land of Israel" as a beautiful and magical place, while another describes the life in her Polish village and the rise of Hitler. Eager for the family to start a new life, Michal's parents sent her, together with a Jewish youth group, to live in a boarding school in Israel. Her parents were supposed to join her the following year, but after the War broke out, everything changed. When Michal arrived at the boarding school, she realized that her life would not remain the same. Together with her classmates, she had to lose her former Diaspora identity and become a "Sabra," a true Israeli. As World War II progressed, it became harder for Michal and her classmates to keep in touch with their families who were still in Europe. The letters she received from her father and sister, describing the despair of the family left behind, reveal dark undertones. However, Michal's optimistic nature remained strong even during the War years. The vibrant social life of the boarding school distracted her from her worries regarding her family and the realization of their probable fate. Michal tells her story as she remembers it, through the eyes of an innocent child, with no pain or regret. She shows us pictures and letters from her childhood and gives us a glimpse of how she viewed the world as a young girl. Her youthful energy shines throughout the film. Filled with hopes and dreams, Michal left her family behind but, despite the circumstances, retained her innocence and joyfulness and managed to build a home of her own in her adopted country. | 25 | Ayala Sharot | Israel | Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2015 | Closed Season | Bruno, a young German entomology student, travels to an Israeli kibbutz, but he is not seeking a romantic experience in the young Zionist state, nor will he make any scientific discoveries. Before her death, Bruno's mother told him to deliver a letter to Avi, a German-born Jewish member of the kibbutz. Reluctantly, Avi shares his story with the young man. During the war, while fleeing to Switzerland to escape the Nazis, Avi was saved by the brutish, hard-working peasant Fritz, a man as remote as the mountains of the Black Forest he calls home. Against his wife Emma's wishes, Fritz invites the Jew to hide and work at his farm. But Fritz has other things on his mind. He and his wife are unable to have children, and he proposes that Avi father a child with his wife. Inevitably, the erotically charged situation leads to unexpected complications. Spare but sumptuous cinematography captures the passion, desire and jealousy waiting to explode. This searingly intimate film will stay with you long after you leave the theater. The undeniable talents of director Franziska Schlotterer mark her as someone to watch; in her first narrative feature she has created an intense, nuanced examination of the awkwardness of human relationships. | 100 | Franziska Schlotterer | Germany, Israel | German, English | Festival |
| 2015 | Dough | An old Jewish baker struggles to keep his business afloat until his young Muslim apprentice accidentally drops cannabis in the dough and sends sales sky high. | 94 | John Goldschmidt | UK, Hungary | English | Festival |
| 2015 | Eden Rests | A day in the town of Eden when Winston Churchfill arrives and everyone goes to the movie theatre. Flash to today, and the movie theatre is closed. | 6 | Ofer Kapota, Natalie Chen, hadar Sitruk | Israel | No speaking only music | Festival |
| 2015 | God's Slave | Based on the actual events of a 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires, "GOD'S SLAVE" follows Ahmed, trained since childhood as an Islamic terrorist and now assigned to execute a suicide bomb at a synagogue, and David, the cold-blooded Israeli special agent who will stop at nothing to prevent the attack. But neither man is defined solely by his extremist views. Ahmed, posing as a doctor, lives happily with his wife and young son; though David's marriage is on the rocks, he remains devoted to his wife and daughter. With time running out before the attack, David zeros in on Ahmed as a suspect, his investigation culminating in violent, if unexpected, consequences. | 91 | Joel Novoa | Venezuela, Argentina | Spanish | Festival |
| 2015 | Hannah Cohen's Holy Communion | Set in Dublin in the 1970's, this film explores a rarely glimpsed Ireland, as seen through the eyes of spirited, seven-year-old, Hannah Cohen. Hannah Cohen can't wait to make her Holy Communion. The only problem is, she's Jewish! An Irish/Jewish film with an international feel, the beauty of this story lies in its simplicity, humor, and the universal desire to fit in. | 13 | Shimmy Marcus | United Kingdom | English | Festival |
| 2015 | Havana Curveball | Mica is a classic young teen. Enthusiastic. Idealistic. Dreaming baseball. At 13, he is studying for his Bar Mitzvah, the Jewish coming-of-age rite. An earnest kid, he takes to heart his rabbi's requirement to help "heal the world." Imagining himself a savior of sorts, he launches a grand plan to send baseballs to Cuba, a country with a mysterious pull. He knows only that Cubans are poor and love baseball, and that Cuba saved his grandpa's life. On a hunch, his award-winning filmmaker parents pick up their camera. They know the U.S. embargo with Cuba, and the complications of growing up, will throw him a curveball. | 60 | Marcia Jarmel, Ken Schneider | USA, Cuba, Canada | English, Spanish | Festival |
| 2015 | Hunting Elephants | Jonathan (newcomer Gil Blank) is a bright 12 year-old--perhaps too bright, since everyone picks on him at school, including his teachers. His closest friend in the world is his father, Daniel. The two of them meet up every day after school when Jonathan visits Daniel during his work hours at the bank. One day, Daniel is involved in an fatal accident at work, and the bank refuses to take responsibility for it. Suddenly, Jonathan is forced to cope with losing his father while preventing his clueless mother from falling into the arms of the wrong man in order to save them from losing their house. With the help of his cranky grandfather Eliyahu (Sasson Gabai, "The Band's Visit"), Eliyahu's wily friend Nick (Moni Moshonov, "Late Marriage"), and a disgraced, eccentric British Lord (Sir Patrick Stewart, "X-Men"), Jonathan comes up with a crazy plan that will help save his family while getting even with his father's sleazy former boss: the four of them are going to rob the bank! Both hilarious and heart-warming, "Hunting Elephants" is a truly special film that will win over audiences worldwide. | 107 | Reshef Levi | Israel | Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2015 | I Got Rhythm | Story of an elderly man (once a famous saxophone player) and his foreign black caregiver who has rythm as she dances her way through cleaning his house. | 5 | Sheer Lavav | Israel | None | Festival |
| 2015 | I Think This is the Closest to How the Footage Looked | The son recreates through objects the film that his father took on the last day the family had with their sick mother and was accidentally erased. | 10 | Yuval Hameiri | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2015 | Nicky's Family | "Nicky's Family" tells the nearly forgotten story of Nicholas Winton, an Englishman who organized the rescue of 669 Czech and Slovak children just before the outbreak of World War II. Winton, now 104 years old, did not speak about these events with anyone for more than half a century. His exploits would have probably been forgotten if his wife, fifty years later, hadn Ìt found a suitcase in the attic, full of documents and transport plans. Today the story of this rescue is known all over the world. He was knighted by Queen Elisabeth II, and the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 583 recognizing his remarkable deed. | 93 | Matej Minac | Czech Republic, Slovak Republic | English | Festival |
| 2015 | Once In A Lifetime | The fact-based story of a class of teenage schoolchildren in what seems to be a mixed ethnic district of Paris, whose teacher decides to enter them in a competition to examine the Holocaust from the point of view of its impact on young people. It contains some very emotional scenes and chronicles the change in the opinions and interactions of a typical class of adolescents. | 105 | Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar | France | French | Festival |
| 2015 | Orange People | Grandma Zohara occupies a special role within the Moroccan community in Israel. By cradling an object brought to her by her clients, Grandma Zohara gains access to the family's past through her dreams. This allows her to advise families on future decisions. Lately, however, Grandma Zohara is tiring and begins searching for someone to take over this role. She discovers that the only other person endowed with the power of dreaming is her daughter, Simone, who has different plans for her future. With support of Simone's sister, Fanny, who arrives unexpectedly from Paris, Simon gathers the strength to resist her mother's pressure and to pursue her own desires. Together the sisters wage battle for Simone's independence and creativity. | 93 | Hanna Azoulay Hasfari | Israel | Hebrew, Moroccan Arabic | Festival |
| 2015 | Paradise Cruise | Dora, a French tourist, returns to Israel to work on her art project, spending most of her time photographing commemoration ceremonies and military funerals. She meets Yossi, a rebellious young man just out of military service. They fall in love, although they have an unwritten agreement never to mention their lives before they met. However, the past haunts them and tests their love. | 100 | Matan Guggenheim | Ireland, Israel, France, Germany | French, Arabic, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2015 | Rescue in the Philippines: Refuge from the Holocaust | "Rescue in The Philippines" is a one-hour documentary of the previously untold story of how the five Frieder brothers, Cincinnati businessmen making two-for-a-nickel cigars in pre-WWII Manila; together with Manuel Quezon, the charismatic first president of the Philippines; Paul McNutt, US High Commissioner and former governor of Indiana (preparing for his own presidential campaign); and an ambitious Army Colonel named Dwight Eisenhower helped 1,200 Jews escape the Nazis and immigrate to the Philippines. | 56 | Russell Hodge, Cynthia Scott-Johnson | USA | English | Festival |
| 2015 | Run Boy Run | A superlative saga of courage and compassion, "RUN BOY RUN" tells the extraordinary true story of a Polish boy who seeks the kindness of others in his solitary struggle to outlast the Nazi occupation and keep alive his Jewish faith. Escaping the Warsaw ghetto at the behest of his father, nine-year-old Srulik (movingly portrayed by twin child actors Andrzej and Kamil Tkacz) flees to the woods. There, he learns to hide from SS patrols and scour for food, until loneliness and the harsh onset of winter drive him back to civilization. Taken in by a kindhearted farmer's wife (Elisabeth Duda), he is given shelter and a new identity. Passing himself off as Jurek, a Christian war orphan, the intrepid boy traverses the countryside from village to village, working as a farmhand under an ever-present threat of persecution. Some will help him survive and others will betray him. Just when it seems his childhood memories and identity could be lost forever, Jurek's harrowing journey culminates in a powerhouse conclusion and postscript. | 107 | Pepe Danquart | Germany, France | Polish, German, Russian, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2015 | Secrets of War | Tuur and Lambert are best friends in a German-occupied Dutch village. When Maartje joins their class, the the boys embrace their new friend, forming a unique bond based on shared adventures, secrets, and mischief. Ultimately, the realities of war will catch up with them, as they discover each other's secrets and just how different from each other they really are. "Secrets Of War" puts both the danger and the humanity of wartime friendships squarely on the shoulders of three children who must face extraordinary circumstances with a maturity far beyond their years. | 95 | Dennis Bots | Netherlands | Dutch | Festival |
| 2015 | Some Vacation | It's a nostalgic, part-animated memory of a girl's childhood, traveling with her Jewish parents and brother as the father sold "habits" to nuns in convents out in the boondocks. | 6 | Anne S. Lewis | USA | English | Festival |
| 2015 | Synagogue Saga: A Moving Story in Three Parts | Ken Herman from the Austin American Statesman reported on the moving of the B'nai Abraham building from Brenham Texas to the Dell Jewish Community Campus in Austin, thereby making it simultaneously both the oldest and newest shul in Austin. Ken's video, reporting on the unexpected and sometimes humorous twists in this story and the Toubin family that cared for the building for many years, became this movie that was shown as part of the unveiling of the new building in Austin. | 50 | Ken Herman | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2015 | The Best of Israeli Documentary Challenge: The Lady with a Camera | Story by Leah Axelrod, husband of Nathan Axelrod, the "father of the newsreel." | 9 | Avi Weissblei | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2015 | The Funeral | Arnold Cowan is not a religious man. He doesn't believe in any of that nonsense. Which is a bit of a problem because his son wants a proper bar mitzvah, complete with synagogue service and everything done according to Jewish tradition. Arnold's mother pulls him in one direction, and his wife pulls him in the other. But when a family tragedy brings everyone together, it has consequences no one quite expects. | 14 | Nick Green | UK | English | Festival |
| 2015 | The Green Prince | A Palestinian in Ramallah, Mosab Hassan Yousef grows up angry and ready to fight Israel. Arrested for smuggling guns at the age of 17, he's interrogated by the Shin Bet, Israel's security service, and sent to prison. But shocked by Hamas's ruthless tactics in the prison and the organization's escalating campaign of suicide bombings outside, Mosab agrees to spy for Israel. For him, there is no greater shame. For his Shin Bet handler, Gonen, there is no greater prize: "operating" the oldest son of a founding member of Hamas. | 95 | Nadav Schirman | Germany, USA, UK, Israel | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2015 | The Last Mentsch | Marcus Schwartz (Mario Adorf) is an old man who has lived with a cautiously buried secret for most of his life. Marcus Schwartz was born as Menachem Teitelbaum and has concealed his Jewish heritage ever since he survived the horrors of Auschwitz. Now, as he has decided that he wants to be buried in a Jewish cemetery, he has to verify what he has carefully hidden for most of his life, and that proves to be quite a difficult task. On the journey to his roots in Satu Mare, a little village on the Hungarian-Romanian border, he is accompanied by Gul, a young German Girl of Turkish heritage, who, just like Marcus, tries to come to terms with her past. | 95 | Pierre-Henry Salfati | Germany, Switzerland, France | German, Hungarian, Hebrew, English, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2015 | The Other Dreamers | During one year, the film follows the life of 4 disabled children in a voluntary association, the only place where they feel safe and equal. The Other Dreamers is a story of dreams that come true, of children who fall in love, get hurt, dance, compete and live their lives exactly like the "regular" people, just with the addition of a wheelchair. | 38 | Roy Zafrani | Israel, Canada | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2015 | The Outrageous Sophie Tucker | A documentary focusing on the tumultuous early days of this iconic vaudeville superstar who ruled the 1920's Flapper Era in the U.S. Tucker was the first woman to infatuate her audiences with a bold, bawdy, and brassy style unlike any other previous performer. Using all of "The Last of the Red Hot Mamas" 400+ recently rediscovered personal scrapbooks, authors Susan and Lloyd Ecker take you on their seven year journey retracing Tucker's 60-year show business career. | 96 | William Gazecki | USA | English | Festival |
| 2015 | The Window Doctor | Looking beyond the photo, photographer Yoram Amir shares the love of his city, Jerusalem. Old and forgotten windows become Amir's treasures as he recycles them and turns them into art. Director and Austin native Lucas Markman produced this short while participating in the Jerusalem Film Workshop during the summer of 2015. | 6 | Lucas Markman | Israel | English | Festival |
| 2015 | To Life! | German-language drama about an elderly Jewish cabaret singer and the odd friendship she strikes up with Jonas, a young, but terminally ill, German man. | 90 | Uwe Janson | Germany | German | Festival |
| 2015 | Tormus | Sixteen-year-old Maher and his younger brother Eid set out with their grandfather's old cart to peddle lupini beans (tormus) through the village streets. As the amount of shoppers begins to thin, Maher desperately turns to the nearest Jewish city's mall. When they arrive their luck seems to change, until the City Inspector shows up. | 14 | Sari Bisharat | Israel | Arabic & Hebrew | Festival |
| 2015 | What do we have in our Pockets #1 | A tale about what we have in our pockets, based on Edgar Keret's short story. | 4 | Goren Dukic | Israel | English | Festival |
| 2014 | 50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus | Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus never intended to become heroes. But in early 1939, as conditions were worsening for Jews living inside Nazi Germany, the Philadelphia couple embarked on a risky and improbable mission, an effort to rescue 50 Jewish children and bring them to safety in the United States. The couple faced imposing obstacles. The United States government, not to mention a vast majority of the American public, was largely indifferent to the plight of Jewish refugees seeking to escape from Adolf Hitler's increasing persecution. America's rigid immigration laws also made it nearly impossible to bring refugees, even children, into this country. The Krauses, who were Jewish, also had to face the risks of traveling into Nazi Germany and dealing with the Gestapo and other Nazi officials in their effort to carry out their bold rescue plan. In the spring of 1939, Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus sailed for Europe and into the heart of darkness. "50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus" for the first time tells the incredible story of an American couple who, against all odds, brought the single largest group of children during the Holocaust out of Nazi Germany and into the United States. In doing so, they transformed themselves from an ordinary couple into extraordinary heroes. | 63 | Steven Pressman | USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | A Thing So Small | Outside a small house nestled among mountains, a little girl named Lali happily plays. An autumn breeze brings death with it. Lali, curious and innocent, finds herself grappling with the death of the grandmother she loved. | 9 | Mizmor Watzman | Israel | Silent | Festival |
| 2014 | Above and Beyond: The Untold True Story | In 1948, a group of World War II pilots volunteered to fight for Israel in the War of Independence. As members of 'Machal', volunteers from abroad, this ragtag band of brothers not only turned the tide of the war, preventing the possible annihilation of Israel at the very moment of its birth; they also laid the groundwork for the Israeli Air Force. "ABOVE AND BEYOND" is their story. The first major feature-length documentary about the foreign airmen in the War of Independence, this film brings together new interviews with pilots from the '48 War, as well as with leading scholars and statesmen, including Shimon Peres, to present an extraordinary, little-known tale with reverberations up to the present day. | 90 | Roberta Grossman | United States, United Kingdom, Israel | English | Festival |
| 2014 | Aftermath : Pokłosie (Consequences) | Franek and Jozek Kalina, sons of a poor farmer, are brothers from a small village in central Poland. Franek immigrated to the United States in the 80's and cut all ties with his family. Only when Jozek's wife arrives in the US without explanation does Franek finally return to his homeland. Franek discovers that Jozek has been ostracized from the community, and constantly receives various threats. As Franek and Jozek struggle to rebuild their relationship, they are drawn into a gothic tale of intrigue. The two brothers eventually uncover a dark secret that forces them to confront the history of their family and their hometown. | 107 | Władysław Pasikowski | Poland | Polish | Festival |
| 2014 | An American Tail | While emigrating to the United States, a young Russian mouse gets separated from his family and must relocate them while trying to survive in a new country. | 80 | Don Bluth | USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | Arcadia | Girl leaves home after an abusive father kills her mother. | 7 | Jesse Moritz | USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | Don't tell Santa You're Jewish | A little girl, encouraged by her mother, sits on Santa's knee at her hockey club's Christmas Party so she can get a present. The only catch is, she's got to remember NOT to tell him she's Jewish, in this brightly animated short addressing the anxiety of not fitting in. | 4 | Jody Kramer | Canada | English | Festival |
| 2014 | Evan Kaufmann: Father's Land | Sixty-seven years ago, as World War II was coming to an end, allied troops liberated the concentration camps where Adolf Hitler had called for the murder of millions of innocents, mostly Jews. All these years later, the descendants of the victims and survivors of the camps -- not to mention the living survivors themselves -- grapple with the issue of modern Germany, whether to engage or shun, how to forgive without forgetting. Recently, a young American hockey player has come to embody these tensions. | 10 | Robert J. Labay | Germany | English | Festival |
| 2014 | Fill The Void | A devout 18-year-old Israeli is pressured to marry the husband of her late sister. Declaring her independence is not an option in Tel Aviv's ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community, where religious law, tradition and the rabbi's word are absolute. | 90 | Rama Burshtein | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2014 | Five More Minutes | Animated short about a girl on a playground swinging and dreaming | 2 | Tom Yaniv | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2014 | For A Woman (Pour Une Femme) | Written by the filmmaker, the screenplay tells the story of Anne (Sylvie Testud), a novelist with a lot of imagination. She is 35 years old but still knows nothing about her past. This is because her father won't talk, and neither will her sister, because sometimes it's best not to know everything. After her mother dies, Anne finds old photos and letters and decides to find out more about her parents, Michel and Lena, when they lived in Lyon in 1947. It will be the subject of her next novel. Delving into her parents' past, she soon discovers the existence of Jean, a mysterious uncle that everybody wants to forget and talks about as if he were a ghost. Little by little, she is drawn nearer to a truth that she hadn't realized she was searching for. But time is precious. Her father is ill and could very well take this secret, that for so long has kept them apart, with him to the grave. From Post-War France to France in the 1980s, Anne and her father's destinies intertwine to form a single story. | 110 | Diane Kurys | France | French | Festival |
| 2014 | Gefillte Fish | Gali's family has a long-lasting tradition whereby every woman who is engaged to be married has to prepare Gefilte Fish for the wedding party. Gali, who is engaged to Yaron, has received a to-be-cooked living carp from her mother and grandmother. She is torn between the pity she feels towards the fish and the need to abide by her family tradition. | 10 | Shelley Kling-Yosef | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2014 | Igor and the Cranes' Journey | "Igor and the Cranes' Journey" (2013) directed by Evgeny Ruman, touches the core of the migration experience. When Igor's mother decides for both of them to migrate from Russia to Israel, Igor must learn to face many new challenges, just as the baby crane he observed hatching must soon set out on his first migration. This is the story of an 11-year-old boy and a crane, both on a journey that will change them forever. An estranged father and son are brought together by a young crane named Karl as they trace a family of the birds on their migratory journey from Russia to Africa. | 90 | Evgeny Ruman | Israel, Germany, Poland | Hebrew, Russian | Festival |
| 2014 | Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust | This documentary,directed by Daniel Anker and narrated by Gene Hackman, examines the treatment of the Holocaust in Hollywood films over a period of sixty years and the impact of the films on public perception and thinking, and vice versa. | 92 | Daniel Anker | USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | It Happened in Saint Tropez (Des gens qui s'embrassent) | Saint Tropez sets the scene for a family reunion where guilty secrets and sudden realizations abound and destinies seem to spin out of control. Zef's dear wife dies in an accident just as Roni, his wealthy brother, marries his daughter. When the widower arrives with the coffin containing his wife's body right in the middle of the preparations for the wedding feast, he naturally casts a chill. The tensions between the two brothers who have diametrically opposed characters soon aggravate. All is a pretext for conflict, occupations, women, and religion... | 100 | Daniele Thompson | France | French | Festival |
| 2014 | Keeping Up with the Steins | A 13-year-old boy uses his upcoming bar mitzvah to reconcile the strained relationship between his father and grandfather. | 90 | Scott Marshall | USA | English, Israel | Festival |
| 2014 | Kiddish Time Traveler | A short film by local students in the Austin Jewish Film Festival's "Make a Film in a Day (MAFIA)" project. | 4 | Sarah Brill, Diego Najar | USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | Lunch: The Documentary | For the past 40 years, a group of comedy writers and directors has gathered every other Wednesday for an invitation-only, ceremonial lunch, and other nourishment. The members and their meeting places have changed occasionally, but their friendship and humor persist. As they banter for hours over heaping portions of matzo balls, burgers, and corned beef, they swap jokes, ruminate on their health, and kibitz about their careers. "LUNCH" describes more than a single meal. At each, their perceptive comments are sharp and brilliant. But their meetings mean more to them than affable, professional companionship; rather, a need to keep wit and wisdom alive and well. These are the fabled guys that made America funny. Filmmaker Donna Kanter (daughter of the late comedy writer Hal Kanter) circles the lunch table to capture the priceless camaraderie of these funnymen, as well as one-on-one interviews that fill in their remarkable biographies. An ode to the Golden Age of film and television, this fly-on-the-wall comedy feast provides glimpses of astounding careers that span the eras of American comedy heritage. "LUNCH" is a testament to natural wit, earned wisdom, longevity, and fraternal fellowship. | 78 | Donna Kanter | USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | Nono, The Zigzag Kid | Nono wants to be like his father , he best police inspector in the world, but he constantly gets in trouble. Two days before his Bar Mitzvah he is sent away to his uncle Sjmoel, who is supposed to get him back on track. However, during the train ride Nono gets one last chance to prove himself... Together with master-burglar Felix Glick, an old acquaintance of his father, he stops the train and enters a world of disguises, chases, French chansons, and Zohara, a mysterious woman whose secrets will change Nono's life forever. | 95 | Vincent Bal | Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Spain, France | English, Dutch, French | Festival |
| 2014 | Nyosha | Based on the true story of Holocaust survivor Nomi Kapel. Nyosha is a ten-year-old girl. She dreams of buying a pair of shoes during the reality of a pitiless war. She believes that because of her shoes, she will stay alive. A range of animation techniques brings together the dream and the reality and tells Nyosha's story. Best Animated Film Award Haifa International Film Festival, Israel October 2012. | 13 | Yael Dekel & Liran Kapel | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2014 | One Man, One Love, One Tree | A short film by local students in the Austin Jewish Film Festival's "Make a Film in a Day (MAFIA)" project. | 3 | Joseph Rodriguez | USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | Paddle-Ball (Matka) | Paddle-Ball on the beach: an Israeli obsession. Paddle-ball museum at the home of Amnon Nissin (Amnon Paddles / Amnon the Gunner). | 6 | Avi Balkin | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2014 | Peace after Marriage (Only in New York) | Desperate for companionship, a lonely, young Palestinian-American man agrees to marry an Israeli woman in need of a Green Card, forcing them to re-examine their respective cultural and familial traditions. | 86 | Ghazi Albuliwi | USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | Pizza Bagel | Tommy is nervous about his traditional Italian father hosting an important Kosher dinner. | 9 | Joe Mari | Canada, USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | Plant the Seed | A short film by local students in the Austin Jewish Film Festival's "Make a Film in a Day (MAFIA)" project. | 4 | Eduardo Vela II | USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | Putzel | For some, life is an adventure filled with opportunities to excel and places to explore. For Walter Himmelstein, a young man endearingly known as Putzel, life literally doesn't go beyond his family's fish store and his community on the upper west side of Manhattan. In this heartwarming comedy, Walter's aspirations of taking over his uncle's smoked fish emporium are disrupted by the arrival of Sally who becomes romantically involved with his about-to-retire and very-married uncle. While Walter tries to thwart their romance in order to ensure his taking over the business, he finds his circumscribed life thrown off kilter, and, after years of being undermined by his family and friends, he finally starts to realize his full potential. With Sally's help, Walter confronts his fears and proves he is more than a Putzel. | 88 | Jason Chaet | USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | Slower Than A Heartbeat | Lily is looking for a hero for her new novel. When she finds Nino, a romantic street artist by day and a peeping tom by night, she decides to seduce him and turn him into the subject of her book, without his knowing it. She meets Nino's close friend Freddy, an ultra-Orthodox Jew and a gay drag artist, who is Nino's muse in the same way that Nino is Lily's. Lily sees Freddy as a threat to her manipulation of Nino and realizes she must make Nino give him up. However, the tables begin to turn on Lily when Nino uncovers her true motives and when she finds herself falling for Nino, this time for real. | 90 | Yanai Goz, Yoni Zicholtz | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2014 | Taxi | [Short] In this scene from the feature-length "TAXI" (1932), cabbie James Cagney helps a confused cop (Robert Emmett O'Connor) deal with an agitated Jewish man speaking Yiddish. He doesn't understand why the policeman doesn't understand him. He's trying to make himself important by saying he has a brother who pulls out teeth, a dentist. He needs to go to Ellis Island to pick up his wife and three kids coming from Russia. He's surprised the taxi driver understands him. "Who do you think I am , a schaigitz?" (slang for non-Jew). Delancy Street was on the Lower East Side where all the Jewish immigrants lived. It's "Nolan" not "Knowland." The Irish cop obviously knows the Cagney character and knows the cabbie's last name to be "Nolan," a stereotypically Irish name. Therein lies the joke. The part of Ireland Nolan's folks came from was Delancy St., NYC, center of the NYC Jewish immigrant community. We can thank not only Cagney but the Jewish script writer for this lovely bit of melting pot humor. | 2 | Roy Del Ruth | USA | English, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2014 | The Basketball Game | This animated short tells the story of an epic basketball game between kids attending Jewish camp and students of a notorious local Holocaust denier. Nine-year-old Hart is attending Jewish summer camp for the first time. He is both curious and afraid. What awaits him on the basketball court? | 5 | Hart Snider | Canada | English | Festival |
| 2014 | The Devotion Project: Listen from the Heart | The Devotion Project tells the stories of happy and thriving LBGTQ families. "Listen from the Heart" is the third film in the series that traces the relationship of Laura Fitch and Jaime Jenett, from their initial meeting and love affair, through the birth of their child, a boy with a heart condition who enriches their lives in ways they could never have imagined. | 10 | Antony Osso | USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | The German Doctor (Wakolda) | The true story of an Argentinean family who lived with Josef Mengele without knowing his true identity, and of a girl who fell in love with one of the biggest criminals of all times. Patagonia, 1960: A German doctor (Alex Brendemuhl) meets an Argentinean family and follows them on a long desert road to a small town where the family will be starting a new life. Eva (Natalia Oreiro), Enzo (Diego Peretti), and their three children welcome the doctor into their home and entrust their young daughter, Lilith (Florencia Bado), to his care, not knowing that they are harboring one of the most dangerous criminals in the world. At the same time, Israeli agents are desperately looking to bring THE GERMAN DOCTOR to justice. Based on filmmaker Luca Puenzo's fifth novel ("XXY"), the story follows Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death, a German SS officer, and a physician at the Auschwitz concentration camp, in the years he spent in hiding along with many other Nazis, in South America following his escape from Germany. Mengele was considered to be one of WWII's most heinous Nazi war criminals. | 93 | Luca Puenzo | Argentina, France, Spain, Norway | Spanish, German, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2014 | The Last Flight of Petr Ginz | By 14 he had written five novels and penned a diary about the Nazi occupation of Prague. By 16 he had produced more than 170 drawings and paintings, edited an underground magazine in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, written numerous short stories, and had walked to the gas chamber at Auschwitz. But this is a story of celebration as well as tragedy, a testament to how a boy's wonder and creative expression represent the best of what makes us human | 65 | Sandra Dickson, Churchill Roberts | USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | The Matchmaker | A teenager learns some important lessons about love and life one summer in this romantic drama from director Avi Nesher. It's 1968, and culturally Israel is finally letting go of the style and mores of the 1950s as the upheaval of the '60s is beginning to make itself felt. Arik (Tuval Shafir) is a 16-year-old boy with a taste for detective novels who is looking for a summer job. Arik's father introduces him to someone who can put him to work, Yankele Bride (Adir Miller) is a matchmaker who finds mates for lonely souls, and he gives Arik a job digging up information on potential mates for his clients. Yankele's philosophy is to give people "what they need, not what they want," and he searches for mates for a variety of clients, ranging from a beautiful midget (Bat-el Papura) to a bitter librarian (Dror Kenen). Arik also finds himself falling in love when he meets Tamara (Neta Porat), a girl with a wild streak who is spending the summer in Haifa. But Arik isn't sure why the matchmaker who is so clearly infatuated with the pretty Clara (Maya Dagan) is still single, and the boy also tries to make sense of some gossip about how Yankele survived the Holocaust. | 112 | Avi Nesher | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2014 | The Pitch | A first-time young filmmakers pitches her samurai fight movie to a producer. | 7 | Mysh | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2014 | The Sturgeon Queens | Four generations of a Jewish immigrant family create Russ and Daughters, a Lower East Side lox and herring emporium that survives and thrives. Produced to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the store, this documentary features an extensive interview with two of the original daughters for whom the store was named, now 100 and 92 years old, and interviews with prominent enthusiasts of the store, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin, and 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer. Rather than a conventional narrator, the filmmakers bring together six colorful longtime fans of the store, in their 80s and 90s, who sit around a table of fish reading the script in the style of a passover Seder. | 52 | Julie Cohen | USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | The Wonders | The complex relationship between a Jerusalem street artist and a mysterious, modern-day prophet being held prisoner in an abandoned apartment across the alleyway. | 112 | Avi Nesher | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2014 | Under the Same Sun | The film is set in the near future, and it looks back at the story of two businessmen, one Palestinian and one Israeli, who struggle to set up a solar energy company. Both come from societies where there is strong opposition to cooperating with the other, and the film tells how they overcome hostility from within their own families and from the people around them. In the end, they mount a Facebook campaign that impacts their joint venture and ultimately changes the political map. | 75 | Sameh Zoabi | Israel | Hebrew, Arabic, English | Festival |
| 2014 | Until We'll Find A Place | Game where a seat is taken away on each round when the music stops. At each round the child ages until the last round is the grave. Humans, wherever they are, are born into an endless competition with each other; each age has it's goals. A colorful allegory to the well known children's game of musical chairs. | 3 | Renana Kol | Israel | English | Festival |
| 2014 | Ushpizin | An Orthodox Jewish couple's faith is tested after praying to the Lord for a child on the Succoth holiday. | 90 | Gali Dar | Israel | Hebrew, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2014 | When Comedy Went to School | The birth of modern stand-up comedy began in the Catskill Mountains - a boot camp for the greatest generation of Jewish-American Comedians. | 83 | Mevlut Akkaya, Ron Frank & Lawrence Richards | USA | English | Festival |
| 2014 | Why Moses Hit the Rock | The Jews who wandered the desert were no different than your average Florida retiree. With all the Jewbellishing, can you blame Moses for hitting the rock? | 3 | Jeffrey Lampert | USA | English | Festival |
| 2013 | A Bottle In The Gaza Sea | Tal is 17 years old. Naim is 20. She's Israeli. He's Palestinian. She lives in Jerusalem. He lives in Gaza. They were born in a land of scorched earth, where fathers bury their children. They must endure an explosive situation that is not of their choosing at an age where young people are falling in love and taking their place in adult life. A bottle thrown in the sea and a correspondence by email nurture the slender hope that their relationship might give them the strength to confront this harsh reality to grapple with it, and thereby ever so slightly change it. Only 60 miles separate them but how many bombings, check-points, sleepless nights and bloodstained days stand between them? | 100 | Thierry Binisti | France, Israel, Canada | Hebrew, Arabic, French | Festival |
| 2013 | Berlin '36 | In the days leading up to the 1936 Olympics, the fate of high jumper Gretel Bergmann hangs in the balance as it is decided whether or not a Jewish athlete can be a part of the German Olympic team. | 100 | Kaspar Heidelbach | Germany | German, English | Festival |
| 2013 | Brothers | A religious fundamentalist Jewish lawyer arrives in Israel to both reacquaint himself with his secular brother and work an explosive trial dealing with the conscription of fundamentalist Jewish students into the Israel Defense Force. | 113 | Igaal Niddam | Switzerland, Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2013 | Dressing America: Tales From The Garment Center | New York's fashion district, otherwise known as the Garment Center, has always held sway over the imaginations of the style-conscious and those seeking glamour. This little slice of Manhattan has nurtured the likes of retailers and designers, from Hattie Carnegie to Donna Karan, in their quest to create world-class fashions that have made generations of Americans feel and look stylish. It has also provided employment for countless metropolitan area residents, and it continues to draw visitors from around the world, many of whom come to study at the prestigious Fashion Institute of Technology. "Dressing America" will tell a quintessentially American story. | 57 | Steven Fischler, Joel Sucher | USA | English | Festival |
| 2013 | Glickman | Glickman is an illuminating portrait of a man who overcame prejudice to forge a remarkable career in sports, setting the gold standard for athletes and sports broadcasters past, present and future. | 84 | James L. Freedman | USA | English | Festival |
| 2013 | Hava Nagila: The Movie | A documentary on the history, mystery, and meaning of the ubiquitous Jewish standard that follows the around-the-world journey, from Ukraine to Youtube, of the song "Hava Nagila." | 75 | Roberta Grossman | United States, Ukraine, Israel | English | Festival |
| 2013 | Invisible | Two women meet by chance and discover they were both raped by the same serial rapist. Individually and together they must confront the past and finally integrate the long repressed trauma into their lives. | 90 | Michal Aviad | Israel, Germany | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2013 | Jerusalem ER | Hadasa Mount Scopus Hospital is located in the ethnically charged buffer zone between the Palestinian and Israeli communities of Mount Scopus. Our story is seen through the eyes of the two female doctors working in the emergency unit, Dr. Stalnikowicz, a Jewish immigrant from Chile, and Dr. Salameh, a Palestinian Israeli from the north, and from the perspectives of the ER patients whose stories reflect the world outside the hospital doors. | 17 | Hilla Medalia | Israel | Arabic, Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2013 | Jewphoria | A short documentary following comedian Randy Kagan's unexpected trip to Israel. | 17 | Randy Kagan | United States, Ukraine, Israel | English | Festival |
| 2013 | Kaddish For A Friend | A warm tale about an unlikely friendship between two lonely, displaced characters. Alexander is an 84-year-old Jewish war veteran who is desperate to remain living independently in his Berlin flat. Palestinian teenager Ali's family arrives from a refugee camp in Lebanon, and to gain acceptance from his new peers, Ali agrees to break in to his next-door neighbour's flat. When Alexander comes back to his ransacked home, he recognizes Ali, and to avoid being deported, Ali's family send him back to repair the damage. As they work side by side, the relationship between the feisty pair flits between mutual dislike, understanding, and finally friendship, when they realize that the fragile existence of each depends in a large part on the other. Inspired by a true story, Moscow-born, German director Leo Khasin's debut is a stirring, coming-of-age story that shows just how hard unlearning prejudice can be. | 94 | Leo Khasin | Germany | German | Festival |
| 2013 | Life In Stills | A photo shop owner and her grandson join forces to save the shop and the nearly one million negatives that document Israel's defining moments. | 60 | Tamar Tal-Anati | Israel, Germany | Hebrew, German | Festival |
| 2013 | Life/Jai - Los numeros de la vida | When a young Mexican Jewish girl innocently asks her grandmother about the numbers tattooed on her arm, the answer is a surprise. Zylbersztejn captures the unique and magical relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. | 9 | Ariel Zylbersztejn | Mexico | Spanish | Festival |
| 2013 | Melting Away | When Shlomo discovers women's clothing and accessories in his trans daughter's Assaf room, he decides to 'teach the boy a lesson.' When Assaf returns to her parents' home on a rainy night from a party, her attempts to enter home fail. Her father, with the silent consent of her mother, locked the door. At present, four years later, Gallia turns to an investigation agency to help her find her daughter Assaf and bring her to Shlomo, her father who is dying of cancer. One night, at a night club in Tel Aviv, Assaf is seen performing as a beautiful transgender lady singer who goes by the name of Anna. After a few days, a private nurse turns up at Shlomo's room at the hospital, sent, as she claims, by the insurance agency to assist Shlomo. The nurse is Anna (his daughter Assaf), and she manages to conquer Shlomo's heart by her charming personality and her special attitude toward life. | 86 | Doron Eran | Israel, Canada | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2013 | Numbered | Auschwitz prisoners, both Jewish and non-Jewish, were tattooed with serial numbers, first on their chests and then their left arms. An estimated 400,000 numbers were tattooed in Auschwitz and its sub-camps; only some several thousand survivors are still alive today. "NUMBERED" is an explosive, highly visual, and emotionally cinematic journey, guided by testimonies and portraits of these survivors. The film documents the dark time and setting during which these tattoos were assigned as well as the meaning they took on in the years following the war. In fact, the film's protagonist is the number itself, as it evolves and becomes both a personal and collective symbol from 1940 to today. These scars, paradoxically unanimous and anonymous, reveal themselves to be diverse, enlightening, and full of life. | 55 | Dana Doron, Uriel Sinai | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2013 | Out In The Dark | A drama centered on the love affair between two men on opposite sides of the Mid-East conflict: Palestinian student Nimer and Roy, an Israeli lawyer. | 96 | Michael Mayer | Israel, US, Germany | Arabic, Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2013 | Peace of Bread: Faith, Food And The Future | The 4-time Emmy Award-winning filmmakers of Diva Communications bring you a new interfaith documentary, "A Peace of Bread: Faith, Food, and the Future." There have been many documentaries exploring hunger issues but none quite like this. The film is a compelling and heart-felt look at how young, and not so young, faith leaders are trying to finally make a dent in this country's 49 million people (17 million of which are children) that are experiencing hunger. With faiths' enduring mandate to "feed the hungry, "A Peace of Bread: Faith, Food, and the Future" explores the work not only of the steadfast caregivers in soup kitchens and food pantries, but also that of a new generation of anti-hunger activists, all of whom driven by faith in a brighter future. Agricultural sustainability, social network community building, and advocacy to reshape food policy, these are just some of the ways in which faith-based groups are bringing a new perspective to an old problem. This film reminds us that we are "not obligated to finish the work (of perfecting the world) but neither are you allowed to desist from it." (Pirket Avot 2:16) And with 49 million people suffering from hunger in our nation, the issue requires the combined effort of us all. | 58 | David Vinik | United States | English | Festival |
| 2013 | People of the Graphic Novel | Like jazz, the comics are a truly American art form, chock-full of the dreams of Jewish kids. Sam Ball provides a look at the birth of the comics, and you may be surprised at who gave birth to Clark Kent and how the funnies went from thrilling pulp to respected graphic novel. | 11 | Sam Ball | United States | English | Festival |
| 2013 | Rainbow | A taut, suspenseful film, based on true events, about a group of soldiers who need to secure an area in Gaza while their colleagues collect the remains of Israeli soldiers who have been killed in an ambush. Michael, the squad commander, positions his troops in a house populated by a Palestinian family. The platoon is accompanied by a military photographer who complicates the situation by questioning their behavior and posing a security burden through his reckless actions. As their stay in the house is prolonged, tensions boil. | 41 | Eliran Elya | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2013 | Seven Minutes In The Warsaw Ghetto | A little boy in the middle of the brutal world of the Holocaust. Based on an actual event. | 8 | Johan Oettinger | Denmark | None | Festival |
| 2013 | Simon And The Oaks | Two boys come of age in Sweden during World War II. | 122 | Lisa Ohlin | Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Norway | Swedish, German, Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2013 | Sorry, Rabbi | Josh is a young secular jewish professional living in Montreal's Mile End neighborhood. One night he's confronted by a group of Hasidic men who accuse him of having thrown a rock at them and of anti-Semitism. Josh's first thought is, 'what would my mother think?' Trying to resolve the misunderstanding, Josh agrees to an impromptu tribunal with the Hasidic men and their Rabbi. | 7 | Mark Slutsky | Canada | English | Festival |
| 2013 | Strangers No More | In the heart of Tel Aviv, there is an exceptional school where children from forty-eight different countries and diverse backgrounds come together to learn. Many of the students arrive at Bialik-Rogozin School fleeing poverty, political adversity and even genocide. Here, no child is a stranger. The film follows several students' struggle to acclimate to life in a new land while slowly opening up to share their stories of hardship and tragedy: Mohammed, a sixteen-year-old refugee from Darfur, witnessed the killing of his grandmother and father before escaping alone through Egypt to Israel. Having never been in a school before, his sharp mind and tremendous determination enable him to make up the years of study he never had. Johannes arrived at Bialik-Rogozin after spending most of his life in refugee camps across the Middle East. His father struggles to obtain a work visa while twelve-year-old Johannes struggles to adjust to attending school for the first time. After a slow start, his teachers realize that he is nearly blind in one eye and take him to an eye clinic. With his new glasses, before long, he is reading and writing - and helping other newcomers to adjust. After the murder of her mother, Esther and her father fled South Africa with nothing, in search of safety and peace of mind. At Bialik-Rogozin, they are welcomed with clothing, food and counsel on beginning a new life. Esther's teachers try to relieve the trauma of a nine-year-old girl who believes her mother will return. With tremendous effort and dedication, the school provides the support these children need to recover from their past. Together, the bond between teacher and student, and amongst the students themselves, enables them to create new lives in this exceptional community. Upon graduation, Mohammed provides the finest evidence of the school's ultimate success -- declaring his dream to return to Darfur and build a school for the children of the village he once fled. | 40 | Karen Goodman, Kirk Simon | US, Israel | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2013 | The Ballad Of The Weeping Spring | In this riveting drama with outstanding music, a legendary band reunites to play an emotional final concert: Twenty years after a car accident for which he was held responsible, Yosef Tawila (Israeli Academy Award winner Uri Gavriel) is running a bar in northern Israel. The son of Avram, Yosef's bandmate, best friend, and another survivor from the crash, arrives with the news that his father is dying. He brings the sheet music for "The Weeping Springtime Symphony," a piece Yosef and Avram worked on together but never played. Yosef, once the leader of this band, decides to reunite his old musician buddies to grant his dying friend's final wish , and perhaps to heal his own tortured soul. An engrossing and original drama with an unforgettable music soundtrack. | 106 | Benny Toraty | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2013 | The Day I Saw Your Heart | Justine, a defiant young woman, navigates the madness of love and family in fast-paced contemporary Paris and flits from one boyfriend to the next while her immature father secretly befriends them all. | 98 | Jennifer Devoldere | France | French | Festival |
| 2013 | The Other Son | Two young men, one Israeli and one Palestinian, discover they were accidentally switched at birth. | 105 | Lorraine Levy | France | French, English, Arabic, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2013 | The Party | An unexpected guest gets a different attitude in a colorful party. | 5 | Segev Gershon-Green | Israel | None | Festival |
| 2013 | Through The Eye Of The Needle: The Art of Ester Nisenthal Krinitz | A Holocaust survivor's remembrances in uniquely beautiful stitched images and vivid accounts bring an uplifting life story to the screen. | 30 | Nina Shapiro-Perl | USA | English | Festival |
| 2013 | Wherever You Go | Years after cutting herself off from her Orthodox family, Zohara decides to show up at her younger sister's wedding. On her way to the wedding she meets Neriman, a young Bedouin woman, who's escaping an arranged wedding forced upon her with her cousin. Zohara finds herself becoming an unintentional accomplice in Nerimans escape. | 38 | Rony Sasson | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2013 | Yossi | This sequel to "Yossi and Jagger" finds Dr. Yossi Gutmann reminiscing about his love for Jagger ten years after his death. When he encounters a group of young soldiers, one of them, Tom, reignites his romantic feelings. | 84 | Eytan Fox | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2012 | A Midday's Fantasy | When the long cravings of an over-the-top street performer and an over-matured girl clash, we find out reality is tougher than any midday's fantasy. | 4 | Omer Reis | Israel | English | Festival |
| 2012 | Bride Flight | The story of the women on the KLM flight that won the 1953 Air Race from London to Christchurch, New Zealand. | 130 | Ben Sombogaart | Netherlands, Luxembourg | Dutch, English | Festival |
| 2012 | Crime After Crime | The story of the battle to free Debbie Peagler, an incarcerated survivor of brutal domestic violence. Over 20 years in prison cannot crush the spirit of this determined African-American woman, despite the injustices she has experienced, first at the hands of a duplicitous boyfriend who beat her and forced her into prostitution, and later by prosecutors who cornered her into a life behind bars for her connection to the murder of her abuser. Her story takes an unexpected turn two decades later when a pair of rookie land-use attorneys cut their teeth on her case -- and attract global attention to the troubled intersection of domestic violence and criminal justice. | 95 | Yoav Potash | United States | English | Festival |
| 2012 | David | "David" tells the story of Daud, an eleven year old religious Muslim boy growing up in Brooklyn. Concealing his Muslim identity, Daud inadvertently befriends a group of Jewish boys who through a haphazard sequence of events mistake him for being Jewish and accept him as one of their own. A genuine bond of friendship is formed between Daud and Yoav, one of the Jewish boys; Daud experiences a sense of freedom, joy, and camaraderie that he has never felt before, and for a brief time enjoys being a carefree eleven-year-old Brooklyn boy. When the Jewish boys discover Daud's true identity, Daud's world is shattered, and he is left alone, struggling to come to terms with his place in the world. | 80 | Joel Fendelman, Patrick Daly | United States | English | Festival |
| 2012 | David Amram: The First 80 Years | The life and times of Classical/Jazz/film score composer/conductor/jazz french hornist/world musician and Beat novelist Jack Keroauc's musical collaborator, David Amram. | 93 | Lawrence Kraman | United States | English | Festival |
| 2012 | Finding Kalman | In this moving documentary a charismatic Holocaust survivor inspires her family to connect to relatives they never met. Focusing on her brother, Kalman, Anna recounts tales of a mischievous boy who tried to escape the Warsaw ghetto with her. Her daughter, an artist, devours the stories and paints his portrait over and over again. | 29 | Roz Jacobs, Laurie Weisman | United States | English | Festival |
| 2012 | Foreign Letters | A bittersweet coming-of-age film, "Foreign Letters" is itself a love letter to the unshakeable bond between friends. Set in the pre-email era of the 1980s, young Ellie, newly arrived to the US from Israel, anxiously waits for letters from her best friend back home. Suffering from homesickness, language difficulties, and rejection at school, life brightens when she meets Thuy, a Vietnamese refugee her age. As the two bond and become inseparable, they eventually hurt each other, and Ellie must find a way to restore their trust. Based on director Ela Thier's personal immigration experience, "Foreign Letters" is a film about poverty, prejudice, shame, and the healing power of friendship. | 100 | Ela Thier | United States | English, Hebrew, Vietnamise | Festival |
| 2012 | Hamsa: The Pointed Question | In the Western Galilee region of Israel, a light and humorous approach in seeking the answer to the pointed question: Do the fingers on a Hamsa go up or down? A light hearted mockumentary by Austin Jewish Film Festival's committee member Wendy Corn. | 4 | Wendy R. Corn | US, Israel | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2012 | Happy Holidays | Two Hungarian sisters come to terms with the reality of living in Israel in very different ways. | 30 | Luca Marvanyi | Israel | Hungarian, English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2012 | Intimate Grammar | A dysfunctional family and delayed puberty make life miserable for a pre-adolescent growing up in Jerusalem in the 1960's. The film, an adaptation of David Grossman's "The Book of Intimate Grammar," shows our hero, Aharon Kleinfeld, striving to survive his domineering mother, his anti-intellectual father, and his own diminutive stature in a setting of a lower-middle-class housing development where gossip is rampant and appearances are all important. Three years in the life of Aharon in which his soul matures but his body refuses to grow. Perhaps one of his glands is dormant, or perhaps he is afraid of growing up and becoming like his parents. Or maybe he's just a late bloomer, in need of a little more time. But nobody has the time to wait. Betrayed by his family, by his best friend, and his beloved, lonely in his small body, but aware of his maturing soul, he realizes something must be done. | 110 | Nir Bergman | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2012 | Joanna | Krakow, Poland, World War II. Joanna meets a young Jewish girl in a church and decides to hide her. Unable to explain her secret to anyone, the heroine is forced to cooperate with the occupiers. | 105 | Feliks Falk | Poland | Polish, French, German | Festival |
| 2012 | Life is Like a Glass of Tea | When talking to his son about a well-known dying rabbi joke, a real rabbi who is in fact dying reveals a secret of his own. | 6 | Richard Raskin | Denmark | English | Festival |
| 2012 | Little Rose | Pressured by his superiors to disgrace public intellectual Warczewski, a professor and respected writer whom they believe to be a "camouflaged Zionist," rough security-services colonel Rozek enlists his sexy but naive girlfriend, Kamila, to insinuate herself into the distinguished older man's life and report on his every move. Not particularly interested in serving communism but eager to please her domineering lover, Kamila accepts the mission, reporting under the code name "Little Rose." As quick scenes contrast Kamila's crude pleasures with Rozek and her more refined experiences with Warczewski, it becomes clear that the more time the unschooled young woman spends with the professor, the more she comes to have true feelings for him. | 118 | Jan Kidawa-Blonski | Poland | Polish, French, Latin | Festival |
| 2012 | My Lovely Sister | The film is based on a modern Moroccan-Jewish legend and takes place in present-day Israel. It is a triple love story between the primitively superstitious Rahma, her rude husband Robert, and the ghost of Rahma's beautiful sister Mary who died from the pain of banishment, because she followed her heart and chose to live with an Arab man. Rahma and Robert's conscience will be tested through an emotional and passionate journey with the ghost of Mary, so that they can fall in love and accept one another. This surreal legend takes place in the impoverished housing blocks of Israel's peripheral towns. This is also a political story of national fervor. | 91 | Marco Carmel | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2012 | Now I'm Free | This is a film that deals with female empowerment and documentation almost at the moment of a vanishing world. | 50 | Gadi Kviatek | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2012 | Praying with my Legs | "Praying With My Legs" is a documentary about the life, thought and transformative impact of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Eloquent and charismatic, Heschel managed to combine the zeal of the Hebrew Prophets with the joy and love for humanity of his Hasidic heritage. Most Americans, even most American Jews, have never heard of this amazing and inspiring man. Although widely known in "progressive" religious circles and often mentioned in the same breath as other spiritual giants such as Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa and Gandhi, Heschel, to our nation's great spiritual and moral loss, is still a jewel waiting to be discovered by a wider audience. | 120 | Steve Brand | USA | English | Festival |
| 2012 | Rabies | A brother and sister who run away from home find sanctuary in a deserted nature reserve. When the sister falls into the trap of a psychopathic killer, the brother sets out on a race against time to find help. In a twist of fate the rescue of the sister becomes inadvertently intertwined with the lives of a group of young tennis players, a ranger and his dog, as well as a team of policemen. | 90 | Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2012 | Restoration | 70 year old Yaakov Fidelman (Sasson Gabai, "The Band's Visit") hangs on with all his might to the antique restoration workshop which has been his life's work. After his long-time business partner passes away, Fidelman rejects his son Noah's idea to close the business and build an apartment complex on the site. He believes that with the help of his new apprentice Anton, he'll find a way to save his workshop, his world, and his solitary way of life. When Anton falls in love with Hava, Noah's pregnant wife, the two young men compete not only over a father, but also over a woman and the baby she carries. Will the old man understand that his only hope for redemption is to learn to let go and admit and accept his weaknesses and the dictate of time? | 105 | Joseph Madmoney | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2012 | Seltzer Works | In the early 1900s thousands of seltzer deliverymen criss-crossed the nation, schlepping heavy glass bottles full of fizzy water to millions of thirsty customers. Today, with only a handful of deliverymen left in the country, the siphon machines at Gomberg Seltzer Works don't turn like they used to. Most of the old customers have passed on (or moved to Florida). But there are still bubbles being made by third-generation seltzer filler Kenny Gomberg. In Jessica Edwards' short documentary film "Seltzer Works," the last bottler in Brooklyn fends off the supermarket seltzer take-over and honors this simple drink's place in history. | 7 | Jessica Edwards | United States | English | Festival |
| 2012 | The Band's Visit | A band comprised of members of the Egyptian police force head to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, only to find themselves lost in the wrong town. | 87 | Eran Kolirin | Israel, US, France | Hebrew, Arabic, English | Festival |
| 2012 | The Five Houses of Lea Goldberg | Leah Goldberg was an Israeli cultural icon whose name is familiar to anyone who grew up there. A revered and prolific Hebrew language poet, author, playwright, translator and researcher of literature, she was a literary powerhouse whose works are regarded as classics of Israeli literature. Her poems, so many of which have been set to music, have become deeply entrenched in the hearts and souls of generations of Israelis, and generations of Israeli kids have been raised on the children's books and songs that she wrote. She died 41 years ago, but even today, Lea Goldberg is still an enigmatic figure - she is Israel's most beloved poet, a powerful woman who lived with her mother and never married, a woman who reinvented herself from the ashes of the First World War though her magical poetry. This masterfully-crafted film, marking 100 years since Goldberg's birth, is a cinematic fantasy in five acts, using animation, special effects, archives, still photos, original music and interviews that, taken together, create an intimate encounter with the stormy life story of Leah Goldberg, and celebrate the woman "who chose Hebrew and was chosen by it". | 50 | Yair Qedar | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2012 | The Infidel | Mahmud Nasir lives in a London suburb; his son plans to marry Uzma, the step-daughter of Arshad Al-Masri, a 'Hate Cleric' from Pakistan. Mahmud is not a devout Muslim, but he agrees to appease Arshad, without whose approval the marriage cannot take place. While reviewing his deceased mother's documents, Mahmud discovers that he was adopted, his birth parents were Jewish, and his name is actually Solly Shimshillewitz. He conceals this information from his family and with the help of his Jewish neighbor tries to understand the Jews and their religion. He even locates his birth father on his death-bed in a nursing home. Mahmud does not know that Arshad has been checking into his background and has already approved of him. But on the day of the meeting with Arshad and Uzma, Mahmud finds his life drastically changed when the Police come to arrest him, and he will be forced to publicly proclaim that he is Jewish, a move that will not only alienate him from his family but both the Jewish and Muslim communities as well. | 105 | Josh Appignanesi | UK | English | Festival |
| 2012 | The Names of Love | Baya is a young, extroverted liberal who lives by the old hippie slogan "Make love, not war." She seduces right-wing men to convert them to her political causes and so far she's gotten exceptional results. That is until she meets Arthur, a middle-aged, middle-of-the road scientist, and the sparks fly. | 102 | Michel Leclerc | France | French | Festival |
| 2012 | The Tailor | Culture and confusion meet on a Brooklyn Street, in this hilariously charming reconstruction of a Borscht Belt joke. | 7 | Gordon Grinberg | UK | English | Festival |
| 2012 | Torn | Can a person be a practicing Jew and a Catholic priest? Romuald Jakub Weksler-Waszkinel's mother left him as a baby on the doorstep of a Polish gentile family in 1943. She told her neighbor, "You say you are religious, so take him in the name of Jesus whom you so believe in." These words were prescient, for Jakub joined a seminary at 18 and began a lifelong journey in the priesthood. At 35, Jakub's Polish mother revealed to him that he was Jewish. He continued working as a priest and teaching at the Catholic University in Lublin until age 67, when he was moved to try living in Israel. Encouraged by Michael Schudrich, the Chief Rabbi of Poland, Jakub journeys to Israel where his dual identity as a Polish Jew and a Catholic priest confounds many of those he encounters. Ronit Kertsner's ("Menachem and Fred") heartfelt and insightful documentary captures a poignant search for identity while raising questions about who is a Jew and what being Jewish means. | 71 | Ronit Kertsner | Israel | Festival | |
| 2011 | A Reuben by Any Other Name | Takes a hilarious look at the differences between Orthodox and Reform Judaism in terms of the Reuben sandwich. | 5 | Jeremy Dylan Lanni | United States | English | Festival |
| 2011 | An Article of Hope | On February 1, 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia exploded. Also gone, a tiny Torah scroll , smuggled into a concentration camp during the Holocaust and carried into space by Israel's first astronaut. This movie commemorates the Shuttle disaster and the world's public mourning that followed. | 54 | Daniel Cohen | United States | English | Festival |
| 2011 | Anita | Anita is a girl who suffers from Down Syndrome and lives with her mother in the Once neighborhood in Buenos Aires. On July 18, 1994, the bombing attack on the AMIA changes her life forever. | 106 | Marcos Carnevale | Argentina | Spanish | Festival |
| 2011 | Blood Relation | At 14 my grandmother's sister disappeared from her home in Israel. Years later, she started sending my family letters with a desperate plea for contact, from a refugee camp, where she lived as an Arab. My Jewish family chose to turn their back on their Arab relative. I discovered her letters after my grandmother died and I set on a painful quest, uncovering the past. I search for my lost family in territories occupied by my country and reveal a story that could only be told in the war-torn Middle East, about one family, on both sides of a conflict. | 75 | Noa Ben-Hagai | Israel | Hebrew, Arabic | Festival |
| 2011 | Budrus | Follows a Palestinian leader who unites Fatah, Hamas and Israelis in an unarmed movement to save his village from destruction. Success eludes them until his 15-year-old daughter jumps into the fray. | 70 | Julia Bacha | Israel, US | Hebrew, Arabic, English | Festival |
| 2011 | Cohen on the Bridge: The Rescue at Entebbe | A rescue like no other... Animated story of the 1976 hostage rescue in Entebbe, Uganda, narrated in first-person by the first commando to enter the building, through the perspective of his own family's rescue in the Holocaust. | 20 | Andrew Wainrib | Israel, US, France, UK | English | Festival |
| 2011 | Gay Days | In 1985, there were three gays who were out of the closet in Israel. By 1998, there were 3,000. In this short, intensive, and dramatic period, Israel came out of the closet in one of the quickest and most colorful revolutions of the end of the 20th century. There was no bloodshed in this revolution but a rare cooperation between academics, prostitutes, transsexuals, singers, hairdressers, and military officers. The director, Yair Qedar, documented this revolution in his newspaper, The Pink Times. Using rare archival materials, personal stories, and touching scenes, and via his own personal diary, the film tells the untold story of the GLBT revolution in Israel in an energetic, bittersweet musical collage. | 72 | Yair Qedar | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2011 | Gei Oni (Valley of Strength) | The story of "Gei Oni" is an historical epic which interweaves the story of the first wave of Jewish European migration to Palestine, at the end of the 19th century, with an unusual love story between Fania, a young Russian immigrant, and Yechiel, a native Jew. Seventeen-year-old Fania, her baby daughter, her elderly uncle, and her emotionally impaired brother arrive at the port of Jaffa, having survived a pogrom in which all other members of their family were killed. Having no real choice, Fania marries Yechiel, a widower whose wife died of malaria, leaving him to care for their two children himself. The two set out to a small settlement near Safed, where Yechiel and a few other daring settlers are trying to cultivate the barren lands which they bought from local Arabs. Fania is burdened by a harrowing secret she is unable to share with anyone else. but unless her husband Yechiel shares her secret, their marriage cannot be consummated. | 102 | Dan Wolman | Israel | Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, Yiddish, Turkish | Festival |
| 2011 | Howl | James Franco stars as the young Allen Ginsberg, poet, counter-culture adventurer, and chronicler of the Beat Generation. In his famously confessional, leave-nothing-out style, Ginsberg recounts the road trips, love affairs, and search for personal liberation that led to the most timeless and electrifying work of his career: the poem HOWL. Meanwhile, in a San Francisco courtroom, HOWL is on trial. Prosecutor Ralph McIntosh (David Strathairn) sets out to prove that the book should be banned, while suave defense attorney Jake Ehrlich (Jon Hamm) argues fervently for freedom of speech and creative expression. The proceedings veer from the comically absurd to the passionate as a host of unusual witnesses (Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker, Treat Williams, Alessandro Nivola) pit generation against generation and art against fear in front of conservative Judge Clayton Horn (Bob Balaban). | 84 | Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman | United States | English | Festival |
| 2011 | Leap of Faith | Four American families struggle with a life-altering decision to abandon their childhood Christian faith for conversion to Orthodox Judaism. A young woman from Trinidad, a family who leaves their dream home in the remote mountains of Colorado, a career Army woman and single mother, and an elderly couple. Each finally finds the faith for which they've long searched. Filmed over a three-year period, Leap of Faith is the rare documentary to chronicle not only the deeply emotional process of religious conversion, but also its effects on children and extended families. | 95 | Antony Benjamin, Stephen Z. Friedman | United States | English | Festival |
| 2011 | Lost Islands | A family in the 80s with five kids get into a crisis when twin brothers fall in love with the same girl. | 103 | Reshef Levi | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2011 | Louise's Diary , 1942 | Jean, an elderly Jewish man, pores over the diary of his sister Sarah written during the German occupation of France in 1942. Sarah is young, beautiful and in love. The object of her affection is Hans, a German officer pressured into joining the SS by his overbearing father. Hans rejects the Nazi ideology and secretly provides false papers to Jews. To avoid persecution, Sarah changes her name to Louise Berger and hides in the safe house of Huguette, a cabaret singer. Strangers in peril pass through the safe house under the watchful eye of Huguette's mother Margot, struck mute since the death of her son. Despite the risk, Hans visits Louise in the safe house and, hidden from the world, their precarious relationnship blooms. The arrival of Michel, a wanted French Resistance fighter, shatters the calm of the safe house. The volatile ideology of the outside world creeps in to this utopia, and soon the safe house cannot protect the young lovers and they are forced to flee. This causes Jean to intervene, with dramatic consequences. The conflict has forged an impossible love, with a purity that transcends the animosity of war. | 85 | Franck Phelizon | France | French | Festival |
| 2011 | Maya | MAYA is an Israeli psychodrama that blurs the lines of reality as an ambitious but struggling young actress descends into madness. Kicked out of acting class as a no-talent, Maya catches a break when a well-known Tel Aviv director, Hagai (Gil Frank), awards her the lead in his newest play. Complications arise when Maya becomes romantically involved with her hunky, chauvinistic director. Researching the role as a mentally disturbed woman, she checks herself into a psychiatric hospital, prompting a bitter conflict with Hagai over the authenticity of her performance. Wrestling with the demands of the role, her affair with her mentor, and a roommate's personal crisis, the traumatized actress finds herself on the brink as she prepares to take center stage at the play's premiere. | 89 | Michael Bat-Adam | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2011 | Naomi | The May-December marriage of Ilhan, a 60-ish celebrity physics professor and his stunning, 28-ish wife, Naomi, seems headed for disaster. Naomi claims she is busy with a friend but Ilhan is convinced she is having an affair. He calls his mother to voice his concerns and she asks what he expected when he married a woman half his age. He becomes an amateur detective in an attempt to learn the truth about Naomi's lover which leads to dire consequences. The irony of the fact that Ilhan's best friend is a detective is not lost upon the viewer, but his mother's involvement lends a whole new meaning to the term, "Jewish Mother." | 90 | Eitan Tzur | Israel, France | Hebrew, Arabic, Russian | Festival |
| 2011 | Ruth | During the days of the Israeli withdrawal from the settlements in the Gaza strip, when the residents of the Katif Settlements are uniting to fight for its existence, Ruth, a young teenager from the settlement, is searching for excitement. When Ruth meets Erez, a photojournalist sent to cover the events of the disengagement, she realizes that she doesn't belong anywhere. "Ruth" is an adolescence story of a young girl living in the most dangerous place in Israel. In a society demanding a united front and common beliefs, Ruth fights to interpret her faith in her own way. It is not a political struggle but the struggle of one girl for the privilege of holding an independent opinion in a social surrounding which strongly embraces a united point of view dictated from above. | 56 | Keren Abitan | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2011 | Seven Minutes in Heaven | One morning Galia and her boyfriend board a local Jerusalem bus. It is packed with passengers, among them a suicide bomber. The bus explodes, leaving Galia with severe burns and memory loss. She has no memory of the day of the terrorist attack and the days leading up to it. A necklace sent to her from an unidentified source sets her off on a journey to find the missing pieces of the puzzle from that horrific day. | 94 | Omri Givon | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2011 | Sinner | Yotam, a thirteen year-old boy studying at an ultra-Orthodox Jewish boarding school tries to battle the awakening of his sexual desires. Confused and guilt-ridden, he consults with his rabbi who abuses his position and Yotam's innocence. With no one to trust and nowhere to go, Yotam finds himself trapped by the enforced silence in his community. | 28 | Meni Philip | Israel | Hebrew, English, Italian | Festival |
| 2011 | Ten for Grandpa | David Karr, husband, father, White House press reporter, film producer, powerful millionaire, defense contractor, Corporate CEO, renaissance businessman. . . Soviet agent? A fast paced, introspective look at the enigmatic life of a most influential ancestor. Taking a clear-eyed, comedic look at the life of this complex character and the events surrounding his untimely demise, the film reaches to understand the forces that push an individual to immerse himself in a nefarious web of danger and infamy. | 8 | Doug Karr | Canada | English | Festival |
| 2011 | The Wrong Side of the Bus | What's the price of being a bystander? Sidney Bloch is an internationally recognized professor of psychiatry, loving father, singer and author of books on mental health. He is also a man with a troubled conscience. Sid returns to South Africa from Melbourne for his medical school reunion, determined to resolve his guilt for colluding with Apartheid, that has troubled him for forty years. He's accompanied by his teenage son, Aaron, who turns out to be his harshest critic. Aaron narrates the film. In the Apartheid era, Sid had benefited as a 'White,' contributed negligibly to the struggle against racism, and then left for Israel the day after his medical graduation. A sense of guilt and shame accompanied him throughout his later move to Australia. So how does a man who lost fourteen relatives in the Holocaust become complicit with a racist system? Sid seeks out victims of Apartheid, former colleagues who stayed to make a difference, and political activists such as Judge Albie Sachs, measuring his own stand against theirs. How do they regard him? Could he have acted differently? What were his choices? Aaron critically observes his father's explorations, both supporting and provoking him to move on and at least, forgive himself. The film explores how easy it is to accept injustice and compromise your morals. Though it's easy for any good person to become a bystander, it's not so easy to live with the consequences. "WRONG SIDE OF THE BUS" is about one man's journey to forgiveness. | 56 | Rod Freedman | Australia | English | Festival |
| 2011 | The Yankles | About Charlie Jones, a washed up, ex-major league ballplayer, and how he gets a second chance at life and love by managing an Orthodox Jewish yeshiva baseball team. | 115 | David R. Brooks | United States | English | Festival |
| 2011 | This is Sodom | When ancient Sodom is doomed to destruction due to its people's corrupt ways, Lot is the only righteous man destined to be spared. | 90 | Adam Sanderson, Muli Segev, Asaf Shalmon | Israel, Bulgaria | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2010 | A Matter of Size | A comedy about a 'coming out' of a different kind, overweight people learning to accept themselves. | 90 | Sharon Maymon, Erez Tadmor | Israel, Germany, France | Hebrew, English, Japanese | Festival |
| 2010 | A Secret | A 15-year-old boy unearths a shocking family secret. | 105 | Claude Miller | France | French, German, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2010 | Adam Resurrected | In the aftermath of WWII, a former circus entertainer who was spared from the gas chamber becomes the ringleader at an asylum for Holocaust survivors. | 106 | Paul Schrader | Germany, Israel, United States | English | Festival |
| 2010 | Beau Jest | When Sarah Goldman, a lovely young school teacher in Chicago, wants to please her parents, she invents a boyfriend whom she believes will be the man of her mother's dreams. When her parents insist on meeting the man, Sarah hires Bob, an actor, to pretend to be her "beau." The masquerade works flawlessly for a time and brings comic situations, but in the end, their lives are irrevocably changed. | 98 | James Sherman | USA | English | Festival |
| 2010 | Bruriah | Bruriah and her husband Rabbi Meir lived in the second century C.E., at which time the Rabbis declared that "women are light-minded." Bruriah, a most learned and intelligent woman, mocked their statement. In order to prove their justification, Rabbi Meir sent one of his students to seduce Bruriah. She was seduced, and when she discovered that it had been planned by her husband, she committed suicide. This story infiltrates and creates turmoil in the life of a religious Jerusalem family in 2008. Cultural issues of the value of study for women become salient in this film. | 90 | Avraham Kushnir | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2010 | Camera Obscura | Gertrudis is born as her parents' ship arrives in Buenos Aires at the turn of the 20th century. Labeled ugly, she tends to blend into the background, especially when photographed. When married off to an older, wealthy Jewish rancher, she appears to have a happy life. One day, however, her husband hires an itinerant photographer, and she is strangely drawn to this handsome yet physically imperfect man. | 85 | Maria Victoria Menis | Argentina, France | Spanish | Festival |
| 2010 | City of Borders | Interviews with the owners and diverse patrons of a Jerusalem gay bar called "Shushan." | 66 | Yun Suh | USA | English, Hebrew, Arabic | Festival |
| 2010 | Conspiracy | At the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, senior Nazi officials meet to determine the manner in which the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" can be best implemented. | 96 | Frank Pierson | US, UK | English, German | Festival |
| 2010 | Eli and Ben | The life of the Yassif family becomes almost impossible when the father, who is the city architect, is charged with taking bribes. | 91 | Ori Ravid | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2010 | Five Days Without Nora (Nora's Will) | This story begins when Jose finds out that Nora, the woman he'd been married to for 30 years and then divorced, has committed suicide. The rabbi explains to Jose that due to the celebration of the Passover festivities, together with a few other factors, if Nora is not buried that same day, they will have to wait almost five days to be able to carry out the burial. It turns out that before she died, Nora had devised a Machiavellian plan in order for him to take care of her funeral. But she missed somethingâ a mysterious photograph left under the bed will lead to an unexpected outcome which will remind us that sometimes the greatest love stories are hidden in the smallest places. | 92 | Mariana Chenillo | Mexico | Spanish, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2010 | For My Father | A suicide bomber becomes dependent on the kindness of strangers when his explosives won't detonate, giving him time to meet some of the people he's targeting. | 100 | Dror Zahavi | Israel, Germany | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2010 | Gevald | This astonishing documentary juxtaposes the lives of two of Israel's most prominent ultra- Orthodox leaders. Shmuel Chaim Pappenheim is an anti-Zionist radical activist who organizes mass protests against the secular state. The late Avraham Ravitz was a former IDF soldier and a longtime Knesset member who worked within the system to advance his constituency's religious agenda. This film closely follows them as the 2006 elections approach. | 50 | Ron Ofer, Yohai Hakak | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2010 | Hello Goodbye | When they move to Israel to explore their Jewish heritage and revive their flagging marriage, fiftysomething French emigres Alain and Gisele Gaash arrive in Tel Aviv to find their luggage lost, their apartment gone, and Alain's new job taken. | 99 | Graham Guit | France, Israel, Italy | French, Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2010 | Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger | A coming-of-age story about a 13-year-old girl trying to fit into both a posh private school and an ordinary public school. | 103 | Cathy Randall | Australia | English | Festival |
| 2010 | Honorarium | The arrival of a controversial figure to speak at a university conference tests the boundaries of social decorum and social duties. | 12 | Steve Mims | USA | English | Festival |
| 2010 | Jaffa | In the heart of Jaffa, Reuven's garage is a family business. His daughter Mali and his son Meir, as well as Toufik, a young Palestinian, work there. No one suspects that Mali and Toufik have been in love for years. As the two lovers are secretly making their wedding arrangements, tension builds between Meir and Toufik. | 106 | Keren Yedaya | Germany, Israel, France | Hebrew, Arabic | Festival |
| 2010 | Julot (Marbles) | A little girl's game of marbles leads her to an animated world of magical sights; houses start to dance, windows jump, and the road wanders as a whole new perspective is opened on our everyday surroundings. Directed by Miya Tiberman. | 3 | Maya Tiberman | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2010 | Kirot (Walls) | A woman forced to work for the Russian Mafia as an assassin agrees to help her next-door neighbor kill her abusive husband. | 103 | Danny Lerner | Israel, France, US | Hebrew, Russian, English | Festival |
| 2010 | Leaving the Fold | The difficult life paths chosen by young Hasidic Jews who decide to turn their backs on the insular fundamentalist world into which they were born. | 52 | Eric R. Scott | Canada | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2010 | Lemon Tree | The story of a Palestinian widow who must defend her lemon tree field when a new Israeli Defense Minister moves next to her and threatens to have her lemon grove torn down. | 106 | Eran Riklis | Germany, France | Arabic, Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2010 | Mary and Max | A tale of friendship between two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely obese man living in New York. | 92 | Adam Elliot | Australia | English, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2010 | Pinchas | Pinhas and his mother are new immigrants from Russia. His mother barely makes a living working night shifts, and she devotes her spare time to the affair she has with a married man. On the third floor lives a religious family, Pinhas is drawn to the warmth and unity that characterize this family. There he meets a girl his age and her older brother who slowly introduces him to religion. | 30 | Pini Tavger | Israel | Hebrew, Russian | Festival |
| 2010 | Spring 1941 | Successful doctor Artur Planck, his wife Clara, and their two daughters are seeking shelter from the Nazis storming Poland. A violent love triangle ensues between Arthur, Clara, and Emelia, the woman with whom they are taking shelter. | 120 | Uri Barbash | Poland, Israel | English | Festival |
| 2010 | The Debt | . The espionage thriller begins in 1997, as shocking news reaches three retired Mossad secret agents about their former colleague. All three have been venerated for decades by their country because of the mission that they undertook back in 1965, when the trio tracked down Nazi war criminal Dieter Vogel in East Berlin. At great risk, and at considerable personal cost, the team's mission was accomplished, or was it? The suspense builds in and across two different time periods, with startling action and surprising revelations. | 100 | Assaf Bernstein | Israel | Hebrew, German | Festival |
| 2010 | The Rabbi's Daughter and the Midwife | This documentary tells the story of two charismatic women who created positive change from within their community. Adina Bar-Shalom, the daughter of Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, established Israel's first ultra-Orthodox academic institution of higher education for women. Rachel Chalkowski, a legendary head nurse and senior midwife, established a charitable foundation to assist impoverished ultra-Orthodox families. Each woman probes deeply into Israel's ultra-Orthodox society with brave, feminine resourcefulness. | 50 | Ron Ofer | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2010 | The Wedding Song | The Nazi occupation of Tunisia strains the bonds of friendship between a Muslim woman and a Sephardic Jewish woman who are both preparing for their marriages. | 100 | Karin Albou | France, Tunisia | French, Arabic | Festival |
| 2010 | Underwear | Messages...messages written on underwear. When you have a chance at love, you don't have to say much...but you do need a pile of undies! | 14 | Tomer Gendler | USA | English | Festival |
| 2009 | Aviva My Love | The big dream of Aviva, a poor hotel chef, is about to come true. Through her sister, Anita, she meets Oded, a known writer, who promises he will make her a talented writer too. Her way to fulfilling her dream changes her and her family's lives. | 107 | Shemi Zarhin | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2009 | Bad Faith (Mauvaise Foi) | In Paris, Clara, psychomotor therapist, and Ismael, music teacher, have been lovers for four years. Happy, the couple are expecting their first child and decide to move in together. But the news is not well received by their respective families because Clara is Jewish and Ishmael a Muslim. Although not practicing, this difference will gradually sow trouble in their love life. | 88 | Roschdy Zem | Belgium, France | French | Festival |
| 2009 | Baghdad Twist | A visual memoir of one family's life in Iraq before escaping to a new home in Canada in the fall of 1970. Featuring a never-before-seen collection of archival images, home movies, and family photographs from Baghdad, the film pulls back the curtain on Iraq's once-thriving Jewish community, its perilous final years, and its remarkable ability to find solace in the shadow of fear. | 33 | Joe Balass | Canada | English, Arabic | Festival |
| 2009 | Circumsize Me | In an attempt to get some action with his Jewish girlfriend, a man decides to undergo a circumcision. | 10 | Peter Lemass | Philippines, Ireland | English | Festival |
| 2009 | Dancing Alfonso | The film follows an elderly flamenco dancer in Tel Aviv who, after the death of his wife, falls for another dancer in his troupe. After she rejects him he continues his quest to find another mate. "Dancing Alfonso" also examines the love lives of the other dancers. | 50 | Barak Heymann | Israel | Hebrew, Spanish | Festival |
| 2009 | Dangerous Acts | On the day he is released from prison, Yisrael appears on the doorstep of the woman whose life he had changed. A weird relationship develops between the two. | 96 | Shemi Zarhin | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2009 | Emotional Arithmetic | A bond between three people in a German concentration camp is still there many years after they were split up, all deep scars from back then. One of them invites the others to a reunion, and we're out for a night none of them will ever forget. | 99 | Paolo Barzman | Canada | English | Festival |
| 2009 | Halakeh | This is the story of a journey made by a young religious family: Yael, Yoni, and their three-year-old son Yiftach. Yoni, once a barely observant Jew, is now devoted to the passionately Hassidic Breslov tradition. His wife, Yael, has remained in a more moderate, mainstream branch of Judaism. Yiftach's third birthday falls on the holiday of Lag Ba'omer, and Yoni wants to take Yiftach through a masculine rite of passage, the halakeh ceremony, where a boy's hair is cut for the first time, leaving only his ear-locks. The long journey to Mount Meron brings their conflict into sharp relief. Their encounters with various characters along the way further highlight the chasm which has developed between them. | 48 | Avigail Sperber | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2009 | Love Comes Lately | Octogenarian writer Max Kohn (Otto Tausig) is either wildly imaginative or sadly demented. His long-suffering lady friend Reisel (Rhea Perlman) has become used to his frequent absences -- both mental and physical. Max regularly embarks on book tours, but his flights and fantasies are of dubious authenticity. Is nubile Sylvia (Olivia Thirlby) really attracted to him? Has his student Rosalie (Barbara Hershey) actually come to terms with her feelings for him? How will Max finish his new story? Based on the short stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer. | 86 | Jan Schutte | Germany, Austria, United States | English | Festival |
| 2009 | Max Minsky and Me | Nelly Sue Edelmeister is a supersmart 12-year-old whose twin obsessions are astronomy and her distant heartthrob (and fellow stargazer), young Edouard, Prince of Luxembourg. Nelly lives in Berlin with her German Christian dad and American Jewish mom, who is eager for Nelly to crack down on her bat mitzvah studies. Nelly doesn't take much interest in them, and has even less patience for the very unbookish concerns of her schoolmates, whose lives center on the girls' basketball team. But when Nelly learns that those who make the basketball team will go to a tournament in Luxembourg hosted by her favorite prince, she negotiates a deal with 15-year-old neighbor Max: she'll do his homework for him if he coaches her to become a clutch basketball player. Thus begins the delicate and unlikely friendship between gawky Nelly and reluctant Max. | 94 | Anna Justice | Germany | German | Festival |
| 2009 | Moosh | A 32-year-old policeman named Moosh has a crumbling marriage with an absent wife. One night he finds an abandoned baby in an alleyway and must take the child home until Social Services opens. Taking care of the infant brings about a touching reconciliation between husband and wife. | 28 | Erez Tadmor | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2009 | Mubal | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Festival |
| 2009 | My Mexican Shiva | After Moishe's death, family and friends sit Shiva in Mexico City. During seven days, secrets will be disclosed. | 98 | Alejandro Springall | Mexico, United States | Hebrew, Spanish, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2009 | Noodle | At thirty-seven, Miri is a twice-widowed, El Al flight attendant. Her well-regulated existence is suddenly turned upside down by an abandoned Chinese boy whose migrant-worker mother has been summarily deported from Israel. The film is a touching comic-drama in which two human beings, as different from each other as Tel Aviv is from Beijing, accompany each other on a remarkable journey, one that takes them both back to a meaningful life. | 90 | Ayelet Menahemi | Israel | Hebrew, Mandarin, English | Festival |
| 2009 | Offside | Ishaq Omar is a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who just wants to play a game of soccer with his friends. However, the Israeli separation wall built around his house turns a simple trip to the village square into a rather difficult endeavor. Will he make it on time? "Offside" takes the absurdity of the Israeli occupation and filters it through the apolitical perspective of a young boy. | 15 | Dorit Tadir, Daniel Sivan | Israel | Arabic | Festival |
| 2009 | Praise Ha! | A docmentary exploration of laughter as healing medicine. | 30 | Wendy R. Corn, Andrew Guidone | USA | English | Festival |
| 2009 | Praying In Her Own Voice | This powerful film documents the courageous struggle of a religious female's group called Women of the Wall, a movement for equality next to the wailing wall, perhaps the holiest place on earth for Jews. The story of the Women of the Wall is a test case for the deprived status of women in Israeli public life. The film is an outcry protesting religious coercion and the violent silencing of women. It's a film that raises many questions about the battle of the sexes within the religious Jewish world. | 60 | Yael Katzir | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2009 | Praying with Lior | "Praying with Lior" asks whether someone with Down syndrome can be a spiritual genius. Many believe Lior is close to God, at least that's what his family and community believe, though he's also a burden, a best friend, an inspiration,and an embarrassment, depending on who is asked and when. As this documentary moves to its climax, Lior must pass through the gateway to manhood, his Bar Mitzvah. | 87 | Ilana Trachtman | UK | English | Festival |
| 2009 | Someone to Run With | Through the streets of Jerusalem, two teenagers' stories will unite to tell the summer adventure of their lives. Tamar is an amazingly talented but very quiet and insecure girl who leaves behind her home and all she knows, changing herself unrecognizably, from her looks to her attitude, to brace herself for a dangerous mission to help a loved one. Asaf, a clumsy, naive, and very shy boy working a boring summer job at City Hall, is given quite a mission himself : to take an uncontrollable stray dog from the pound, put it on a leash, and let it lead him back to its owners to be fined. The dog, Dinkah, leads Asaf through the city to the people and places that will tell him about Dinka's owner, Tamar, and her sudden disappearance. The more stories Asaf hears about this extraordinary girl, the more he falls for her, and as he and Dinkah continue their journey Asaf becomes aware that Tamar is in grave danger. Feeling he knows her, and knowing he loves her, Asaf is determined to find Tamar and rescue her from her own rescue mission. This movie tells a beautiful story based on the novel by David Grossman, about growing up and finding the strength to overcome your fears, the meaning of true friendship, and best of all, finding someone to love, someone to hold, someone to run with. | 118 | Oded Davidoff | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2009 | Something Sweet | A triangle love affair between an Israeli, London-based, businessman, his fiance, and her sister in a small village in northern Israel. | 97 | Dan Turgeman | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2009 | The Power of Good: Nicholas Winton | A gripping documentary about the courage and determination of a young English stockbroker who saved the lives of 669 children. Between March 13 and August 2, 1939, Nicholas Winton organized eight transports to take children from Prague to new homes in Great Britain, and kept quiet about it until his wife discovered a scrapbook documenting his unique mission in 1988. Winton was a successful 29-year-old stockbroker in London who "had an intuition" about the fate of the Jews when he visited Prague in 1939. He quietly but decisively got down to the business of saving lives. We learn how only two countries, Sweden and Britain, answered his call to harbor the young refugees; how documents had to be forged, and how once foster parents signed for the children on delivery, that was the last he saw of them. | 64 | Matej Minac | Czech Republic, Slovakia | English | Festival |
| 2009 | The Secrets | Two brilliant young women discover their own voices in a repressive Orthodox culture where females are forbidden to sing, let alone speak out. | 127 | Avi Nesher | France, Israel | Hebrew, French, English | Festival |
| 2009 | Strangers | When Eyal, a young Israeli, and Rana, a young Palestinian, cross paths in Berlin during the 2006 World Cup, their chance encounter changes the course of both of their lives. Thrown together while looking for a flat, they quickly fall in love. As the Final approaches, their relationship develops intensity, but a sudden phone call summons Rana back to Paris. In the real world, these things can't work. Eyal decides to follow her and in so doing saves both their budding relationship and himself. This love story beautifully illustrates how two individuals, acting on what is important to them personally, can change the world. The story touches the profound wounds created by years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and shows a young generation asking to reconnect and even reconcile. | 7 | Erez Tadmor, Guy Nattiv | Israel | None | Festival |
| 2009 | The Year My Parents Went On Vacation | A boy is left alone in a Jewish neighborhood in 1970, where both world cup and dictatorship happen in Brazil. | 110 | Cao Hamburger | Brazil | Portuguese, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2009 | Villa Jasmin | A compelling double love story about a French-Tunisian Jewish family. Henry returns to La Goulette, port of Tunisia, with his wife, in search of his family roots. The film explores his parent's history from the 1920s and the impact of the Vichy Government under German Occupation in the 1940s. | 87 | Ferid Boughedir | France | French, Arabic | Festival |
| 2009 | The Woman From The Bubble | To be an interpreter for deaf people is much more than to be an ordinary intepreter... | 59 | Netta Loevy | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2009 | You Never Know-Shlomo Carlebach | Rabbi, folksinger and composer, Shlomo Carlebach is considered to be the foremost Jewish religious songwriter of our time. In 1966, at a festival in Berkley, between Pete Seeger and "Jefferson Airplane," a young Rabbi came on stage with a guitar and began to sing. Shlomo Carlebach was a brilliant young Torah scholar who had been sent by the Lubavitcher Rebbe to bring Torah to the hippies of San Francisco. But when his love for them transgressed the boundaries of halacha (Jewish Law), he was shunned by the Orthodox establishment. | 63 | Boaz Shacak | Israel | Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2008 | A Different Dish | A mother who can't accept her son's sexuality and a son who has rejected the traditions of his culture learn to overcome their prejudices with the help of a hysterical rabbi. | 10 | Shay Hamias | UK | English | Festival |
| 2008 | A Mother's Journey | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Festival |
| 2008 | A Shabbos Mother | Three sisters, a radio broadcaster who has abandoned her traditional roots, a religious woman in her ninth month of pregnancy, and the film's heroine, who is struggling to conceive a child, gather at their widowed mother's house for the Jewish Sabbath. | 32 | Inbar Namdar | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2008 | Almost | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Festival |
| 2008 | Arranged | "ARRANGED" centers on the friendship between an Orthodox Jewish woman and a Muslim woman who meet as first-year teachers at a public school in Brooklyn. Over the course of the year they learn they share much in common, not least of which is that they are both going through the process of arranged marriages. | 90 | Diane Crespo, Stefan C. Schaefer | United States | English, Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish | Festival |
| 2008 | Blues By The Beach | Fate brings filmmakers together in Israel in April of 2003. They begin a documentary about a live music blues bar by the beach in Tel Aviv called Mike's Place. The aim is to show there is more to the Middle East than seemingly endless war and terrorism. Filming people having a good time stops abruptly when harsh reality hits Mike's Place and changes the course of their film | 77 | Joshua Faudem | United States | English | Festival |
| 2008 | Cheftzi On Air | Chefzi is a radio broadcaster who offers romantic advice to her single, female callers. One night, she decides to take her own advice and proposes marriage on live radio to her boyfriend Yonatan. To Chefzi's surprise, her theories don't work in practice and her world begins to collapse. | 22 | Dalit Eliraz-Ochana | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2008 | Dispossesion | The Sud brothers made a film about their grandfather who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. | Short | Robert Sud | USA | English | Festival |
| 2008 | Her Stories My Hands | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Information unavailable | Festival |
| 2008 | Jellyfish | "Meduzot" (Jellyfish) tells the story of three very different Israeli women living in Tel Aviv whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life. Batya, a catering waitress, takes in a young child apparently abandoned at a local beach. Batya is one of the servers at the wedding reception of Keren, a young bride who breaks her leg trying to escape from a locked toilet stall, which ruins her chance at a romantic honeymoon in the Caribbean. One of the guests is Joy, a Philippine chore-woman attending the event with her employer, who doesn't speak any Hebrew (she communicates mainly in English) and who is guilt-ridden after having left her young son behind in the Philippines. | 78 | Shira Geffen, Etgar Keret | Israel, France | Hebrew, English, Tagalog, German | Festival |
| 2008 | Local Call | Felix Mandel, an internationally renowned astrophysicist, is married with a four-year-old son and often has his head in the clouds. | 102 | Arthur Joffe | France | French, English | Festival |
| 2008 | Making Trouble | Molly Picon became the First Lady of the Yiddish Theatre and later, the undisputed star of Yiddish language films. We'll see how Fanny Brice took herself from being the homeliest girl in New York to the leading star of the glamorous Ziegfeld follies. Sophie Tucker, a zaftig single mother, became the symbol of risque, female sexuality for decades. "MAKING TROUBLE" brings to life some of the female comedic legends that made us laugh, defied cultural expectations, and changed all the rules. | 85 | Rachel Talbot | USA | English | Festival |
| 2008 | My Father My Lord | A respected rabbi is forced to come to terms with the demands of his faith and the welfare of his own family. | 72 | David Volach | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2008 | Native New Yorker | Filmed with a 1924 hand-crank Cine-Kodak camera, Shaman Trail Scout 'Coyote' takes a journey which transcends time, from Inwood Park (where the island was traded for beads and booze), down a native trail (now Broadway), into lower Manhattan (sacred burial ground, now including the newest natives of this island empire). | 13 | Steve Bilich | USA | English | Festival |
| 2008 | Out of Sight | Ya'ara, 24 years old, is attractive, independent, confident and intelligent, and she has just begun her PhD in mathematics at Princeton University. Ya'ara is blind. When she hears of her cousin Talia's suicide, she rushes back to Israel. They were best of friends and twin spirits. Talia saw for both of them and was always the one who believed and led Ya'ara to believe, that in spite of her blindness, Ya'ara could see everything. Ya'ara joins Talia's family for the traditional seven-day mourning period, Shiv'a; there she discovers the secrets of Talia's life and embarks on an investigation to discover the reason that led Talia to commit suicide. Lies, secrets, and gaps are revealed in this powerful story. | 87 | Daniel Syrkin | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2008 | Silver Jew | An intimate portrait of reclusive poet/musician David Berman and his band the Silver Jews. In the midst of their first-ever world tour in the summer of 2006, David, his wife Cassie, and the rest of the band, Tony Crow (keyboards), Brian Kotzur (drums), Peyton Pinkerton (guitar), and William Tyler (guitar), stopped off in Israel to play two shows in Tel Aviv and visit Jerusalem. | 51 | Michael Tully | USA | English | Festival |
| 2008 | Sixty-Six | A boy's bar mitzvah looks set to be a disaster when it coincides with the 1966 World Cup Final. | 93 | Paul Weiland | France, UK | English | Festival |
| 2008 | Steal A Pencil For Me | The true story of the troubled marriage of Jaap and Manja Polak, who lived in German-occupied Amsterdam. During the war, Jaap met and fell in love with Ina Soep. | 94 | Michele Ohayon | USA | English, Dutch | Festival |
| 2008 | Steel Toes | A Jewish humanist and lawyer (Academy Award-nominee David Strathairn) is court-appointed to represent a Neo-Nazi Skinhead on trial for the racially-motivated murder of an East Indian immigrant. | 87 | Mark Adam, David Gow | Canada | English | Festival |
| 2008 | Sweet Mud | Set in mid-1970's; 12-year-old Dvir Avni navigates between the equality values of his home-born Kibbutz and the relationship with his mentally ill mother whom the Kibbutz members denounce. | 90 | Dror Shaul | Israel, Germany, France, Japan | Hebrew, English, French | Festival |
| 2008 | The Bubble | The movie follows a group of young friends in the city of Tel Aviv and is as much a love song to the city as it is an exploration of the claim that people in Tel Aviv are isolated from the rest of the country and the turmoil it's going through. The movie looks at young people's lives in Tel Aviv through the POVs of gays and straights, Jews and Arabs, men and women. It all begins when Noam, a young Israeli soldier, serves in the reserve forces and meets at a checkpoint a young Palestinian man, Ashraf. Following an incident during which Noam misplaces his ID card at the checkpoint, Ashraf shows up on the doorstep of the apartment that Noam shares with a gay man and a straight woman. How will the meeting affect all of their lives? | 113 | Eytan Fox | Israel | Hebrew, English, Arabic | Festival |
| 2008 | The Girls From Brazil | During the 80's, approximately 3,000 Israeli families flew to Brazil to adopt a child. In the meantime, the children, now grown up, are traveling to their land of origin to look for the women who gave birth to them. | 88 | Nili Tal | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2008 | Three Mothers | Rose, Flora, and Yasmin were born as triplets sixty-something years ago in Alexandria, Egypt. Their well-off parents gave them names of flowers, and King Farouk of Egypt gave them his blessing. Today, in Israel, they live together in an apartment without men and without children. Flora has just retired from her work as a midwife, Yasmin awaits a kidney transplant, and Rose, once a successful singer, is wrapped in silence since the death of her husband. One after the other, the three sisters come to "This is your life," a place where people recount their memoirs, in order to tell their life story to Rucha, Rose's only daughter, and talk about their symbiotic relationship. They are also searching for the long lost son of one of them who was given away for adoption under mysterious circumstances. During this period their lives and that of Rucha will change dramatically. Hidden ghosts will slowly appear, forcing the three sisters to confront secrets and lies, and seek forgiveness. At the end of the journey into the past, after they redeem themselves, the sisters will embark on a new journey, to Alexandria, where Yasmin will undergo her kidney transplant and Rucha, who regained her own memories, will be able to start a new life. | 106 | Dina Zvi-Riklis | Israel | French, Arabic, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2008 | True to Life: Stories by Ramla Youth | Ten short documentaries in which teenagers from the town of Ramla tell their own personal, intimate and authentic stories, while revealing their inner worlds, dreams, and frustrations. | 14 | Beri Mirey, Doron Tsabari | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2008 | Voice Without A Face | Assaf Basson's personal documentary is a tribute to his father, an Iraqi Jew who led a double life in Israel as a renowned singer of Arabic music and an agent for Israel's intelligence service, Mossad. Known by his stage name Magdi, Yitzhak Basson emerges as a man of many contradictions: between his love for Arabic culture and his mission as a Mossad agent, and between his professional life as a singer and his personal life as a family man. Director Basson ventures into the rhythm-filled realm of Iraqi Jews who play Arabic music and visits the shadowy world of Israeli secret agents to reveal his father as a complex and charming human being--a man who loved the company of women, the yearning cadences of Arabic songs and his newly adopted country. Because of his intelligence work, Magdi was forbidden to expose his true identity and for years performed only on the radio in order to maintain his anonymity. A Voice Without a Face explores the price Magdi paid in sacrificing his musical career for his family and country, while taking us on the personal journey of an adult son trying to understand the meaning of his father's life. | 52 | Assaf Basson | Israel | Arabic, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2008 | West Bank Story | A musical comedy set in the fast-paced, fast-food world of dueling falafel restaurants on the West Bank. David, an Israeli soldier, falls in love with Fatima, the beautiful Palestinian cashier of her family's falafel restaurant which competes with an Israeli falafel restaurant. Can the couple's love withstand a 58-year-old conflict? | 21 | Ari Sandel | USA | English | Festival |
| 2008 | Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner | A documentary on the personal and political life of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Tony Kushner. The film begins in 2001, when Kushner was mounting the production of his play "Homebody/Kabul" and runs through 2004, as he worked on John Kerry's presidential campaign, got married to Mark Harris, worked with Maurice Sendak, and opened the Broadway musical "Caroline, or Change." | 98 | Freida Lee Mock | USA | English | Festival |
| 2007 | A Cantor's Tale | "A Cantor's Tale" is a documentary film about chazzanut past, present and future through the prism of Chazzan Jack Mendelson's career. In addition to stellar singing, the film visits a bar mitzvah at the legendary Beth El Synagogue in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and interviews are seen with luminaries such as ben-Zion Miller, Mati lazar, Alberto Mizrahi, Alan Dershowitz, Neil Shicoff, and Dr. Larry Hoffman. | 95 | Erik Greenberg Anjou | USA | English | Festival |
| 2007 | A Green Chariot | Emigration to Israel challenges Sasha's Jewish identity. Will love help him to get over this crisis? | 47 | Gilad Goldschmidt | Israel | Hebrew, Russian | Festival |
| 2007 | Adio Kerida | A personal journey about the search for identity and memory among Sephardic Jews with roots in Cuba. | 58 | Ruth Behar | USA | Spanish, Ladino, English | Festival |
| 2007 | And The Gates Opened: Women in the Rabbinate | From events leading up to 1972, when the Reform Movement ordained the first woman, to today, when a bat mitzvah girl can realize her dream of becoming a rabbi, women rabbis have gradually begun reshaping the contours of Judaism, providing fresh perspectives on Jewish tradition and new models of gendered behavior in Jewish practice. This program explores the rich history behind the ordination of women rabbis, the present situation of women as religious leaders, and the voices of future rabbis growing up with a new model. | 60 | Debra Gonsher Vinik | USA | English | Festival |
| 2007 | Another Road Home | The personal story of an Israeli's quest to find her Palestinian caregiver | 77 | Danae Elon | USA | English | Festival |
| 2007 | Atash | A family of five, their two goats, and donkey live in the middle of nowhere, far from their village home. They earn a meager living by producing and selling charcoal, made from the surrounding trees. The father and son are the only ones who ever return to their native village. The Mother and two daughters have not left this place since the day they abandoned home ten years ago. One day the father decides to provide running water for the family by illegally diverting water onto their land. The three women recoil from the idea, but the teenage son obeys submissively, anything to be allowed to continue attending school. The water surging through the pipe parallels the surging resentment the family feels towards the father. He brought them to this place against their will, and they know the reason they left their home is also the reason they can never return, but the newly free-flowing water on their land re-awakens the instinctive desire for freedom they have been repressing all these years. | 109 | Tawfik Abu Wael | Israel | Arabic | Festival |
| 2007 | Be Fruitful and Multiply | Follows the stories of four ultra-Orthodox women. Yentel from Mea Shearim, Jerusalem, is the key figure in the film, and the personal stories of three other women are interwoven into her story. | 50 | Shosh Shlam | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2007 | Beautiful Music | A middle aged conductor and his young gardener seemingly have nothing in common. Prejudice and distrust dissolve in this moving account of true friendship. | 14 | Graciano Debjulah | Australia | English | Festival |
| 2007 | Becoming Rachel | A Wall street executive creates a Ponzi scheme that takes the life of one girl's father, and she seeks revenge. | 35 | Jeffrey N. Albert | USA | English | Festival |
| 2007 | Bleach | An experimental ethnography on race, gender and family. | 15 | Nicole Starosielski | USA | English | Festival |
| 2007 | Covenant: Women, God and All Between | A Jewish fetus grows for nine months in its mother's womb. Eight days after the birth, her husband must circumcise him. The husband blesses, while the mother remains a distant spectator upon the covenant that is made between her son and her Maker. The moment, which in reality lasts for a number of seconds, is just the peak of the tension between faith, religion and religious law, between cultural conventions and the most basic feelings of a mother, who in any other case would give her life to prevent her son from being hurt. The film focuses on the eight days between birth and circumcision, a week in which powerful emotions bring women to the heights of joy and the depths of pain, in which the extremities of the relationships with God are found. God, who takes part in the creation, who determines one's fate, who is closer and further away than ever. Is there a way for a woman to worship her God? To love her God? To be angry at him? Covenant is a film about women, God, and all that's in between. | 52 | Nurit Jacob-Yinon | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2007 | Dark Night | The Israeli-Palestinian conflict manifests in its most complicated form over one night, and the encounter between two Israeli soldiers and the two Palestinian residents of the house to which the soldiers escape after their vehicle is attacked. | 30 | Leon Prudovsky | Israel | Russian, Arabic, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2007 | Free Zone | Two women embark on a road trip after they are brought together by circumstance. Rebecca flees her hotel after a fight with her mother-in-law and hails a taxi driven by Hanna. | 90 | Amos Gitai | Israel, Belgium, France, Spain | Hebrew, English, Arabic, Spanish | Festival |
| 2007 | Hats of Jerusalem | A visitor to Jerusalem is immediately struck by the incredible variety of people, of different ethnicities, nationalities and religions, who throng the narrow passageways of the old city. It soon becomes clear that specific groups within this crowd, almost all of whom sport headgear of varying shapes, sizes, textures and colors, can be distinguished by their hats. Blending interviews, archival footage, period graphics and an evocative musical score, the film shows us that, beyond their practical purposes, hats serve as an identity card, a way of declaring membership in a community, and a religious or political statement often reflecting centuries of tradition."HATS OF JERUSALEM" is thus ultimately a film about external appearances and internal identities, about the material world and the spiritual one, about the physical and the metaphysical. | 52 | Nati Adler | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2007 | Jack the Mench | Creative Life Bio Celebration live-action/animated film that honors the remarkable Jack Susser when God, in the form of a fish (who sounds like Robert DeNiro), intercepts Jack on a scuba diving adventure to go back up to earth and spread the word on what it means to be a mensch... When Jack asks, "Why me?", God delivers the answers and the inspiration for Jack to carry out Mission Mensch. | 20 | Chelsea Low | USA | English | Festival |
| 2007 | Janem, Janem | Eldi, a 40 year old high -school teacher, is in a midlife crisis. He just returned from a long army reserve service in Jenin and informs the school principal that he is not coming back to teach. His midlife crisis is blended with the trauma caused by the loss of his friend, who was killed in front of him by the gunshot of a sniper in the observation post. Eldi's wife, a psychologist, suggests that he get away for awhile. Rather than getting on a plane, Eldi sets out on a journey in his own country. Traveling incognito, he discovers an unknown world in the middle of Tel Aviv. A world of Turkish and Romanian foreign workers exploited by shady Israelis who hire out laborers and control a group of prostitutes. He is drawn into the world of these foreign workers and finds he is attracted to a Russian woman hiding from an Israeli who bought her to be his wife. | 105 | Haim Bouzaglo | Israel | Hebrew, English, Russian, Turkish, Romanian | Festival |
| 2007 | Jews of Iran | After the Islamic revolution of 1979, more than 80 percent of Iran's Jews abandoned their ancestral land, leaving behind a vestigial community of just 20,000, principally in the cities of Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz. "Jews of Iran," a courageous Iranian film arriving even as Iran's current regime has stepped up its anti-Semitic rhetoric, is a timely portrait of the remnants of those Jewish communities and the strength of the faith that allows them to hang on against the ever-present tides of political, cultural, and social perils that work like forces of nature to wear down their very existence. Filmmaker Ramin Farahani gives us a loving portrait of a community where old ways survive in quiet dignity. | 53 | Ramin Farahani | Israel | Farsi | Festival |
| 2007 | King of Beggars | Fishke, a lame Jewish bath attendant, stands up against the ongoing persecutions and killings of Jews and forms the first Jewish platoon in Russia of the 16th century. | 99 | Uri Paster | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2007 | Like a Fish Out of Water | A romantic comedy about a new immigrant from Argentina who falls in love with his female Hebrew teacher. | 50 | Leon Prudovsky | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2007 | Live and Become | A Christian boy escapes to Israel from famine-stricken Ethiopia by pretending to be Jewish. | 140 | Radu Mihaileanu | France, Israel, Belgium, Italy | Hebrew, French, Amharic | Festival |
| 2007 | More Than 1000 Words | Ziv Koren's photographs have become instantly recognizable icons that have helped shape our perception of the conflict in the Middle East. In "More Than 1000 Words" director Solo Avital followed Ziv over a two-year period, shooting in the heart of riots, terror attack scenes, secret meetings with wanted militants, all the way to Israel's pullout from Gaza. This movie, however, is not solely about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict; it is merely set in it. It is a movie about a man's struggle with a history in which he is involved, and the place he finds for himself in it. Like Ziv, it seeks the universal through the most personal; it asks how and why this man gets up in the morning to leave his wife and daughter for a war zone. The movie does not only seek history through the photographer's lens but also the photographer through the lens of history. | 78 | Solo Avital | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2007 | Only Human | A very spry family farce spanning the bustling evening on which Barcelona professor Rafi makes the acquaintance of the family of his new girlfriend Leni: classically Jewish mother Gloria, nymphomaniac single-mum Tania and her brattish daughter, born-again scripturalist David, and blind Israeli War of Independence vet Dudu. That Rafi is Palestinian is one cause for consternation, but when a frozen tub of soup slips from his fingers out the window of their high-rise apartment and flattens a passerby beneath, Leni's advice to act innocent provokes all manner of chaos. Working from a brisk, sparky script that throws everything from lost ducklings to frisky prostitutes and belly dancing into the pot, the cast runs sweetly rampant in this delightful comedy of errors. | 93 | Dominic Harari & Teresa Pelegri | Spain, Argentina, Portugal, UK | Spanish, Hebrew, English, Arabic | Festival |
| 2007 | Past, Present, Night | It has grown dark in the dying city, and Yoav and Shir are navigating their relationship through its nameless streets. As they drive to the airport, in what is a final act of separation, they journey on a circuitous route through their ill-fated relationship. Like the gloomy and abandoned city outside, Yoav and Shir's love has faded and become empty. The only thing left is to make it to the airport and put an end to it, if only they could get there. | 15 | Amir Wolf | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2007 | The Red Toy | In a dump he walks through on his way to school, an Arab lad in Jerusalem finds a small, red electronic game. He picks it up and plays with it as he walks. Security cameras follow him. Near the school entrance, one of his teachers confiscates it, and the teacher, in turn, has it taken from him by two Israeli soldiers. We follow the toy, as do the omnipresent security cameras, into the hands of a cafe owner, and then to a Japanese tourist, a nun, an Orthodox boy, and more. Its very presence, with its lights and beeps, causes suspicion and sometimes alarm. Is this a world in which it's unsafe to carry a toy? | 12 | Dani Rosenberg | Israel | None | Festival |
| 2007 | Toots | From the 1940s and well into the 1960s, everyone who was anyone in New York City went to Toots Shor's legendary nightspot on West 51st Street. Athletes, journalists, movie stars, and ordinary folk all mixed at the bar, reigned over by the saloonkeeper himself, Toots Shor. Larger than life, with abundant charm and a talent for friendship, Shor became an icon in New York's golden years, counting celebrities as diverse as Joe DiMaggio, Frank Gifford, Walter Cronkite, Jackie Gleason, and Frank Sinatra among his close friends. Director Kristi Jacobson's vivid, loving tribute to her grandfather (and an era) charts Toots's rise from the streets of Philadelphiaâ ”the only "Jew kid" in a largely Irish neighborhoodâ ”to the top of the heap and beyond. | 85 | Kristi Jacobson | USA | English | Festival |
| 2007 | Yedidah's Collection | 10-year-old Yedidiah's collection is no ordinary collection. He collects spent mortar shells and lighting parachutes, all evidence of the complicated reality of life he is facing. | 18 | Noam Demsky, Mordy Kershner | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2006 | 10 Days in Gaza | On the 15th of August 2005, Israel embarked on a journey that changed it geographically, politically, and historically. Though lasting only 10 days, Israel's disengagement from the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank marked a watershed event in the country's history. Mass demonstrations and bitter political battles deepened the bold division which cut through the social, political, and economic strata of Israeli society, leaving many homeless and many more reeling from the traumatic event. Throughout the ten days of disengagement, Israel's leading Channel 2 News covered breaking events with 18 correspondents streaming live reports from all the settlements across the coastal territory. "10 Days in Gaza" begins with the military closure of the Gaza Strip to civilian traffic, continues with the morning when the evacuation forces marched into the 21 settlements, and ends with the last soldier who closed the Gaza's gates behind him, ending 38 years of Israeli occupation. | 65 | Dov Gil-Har | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2006 | 39 Pounds of Love | This is the story of Ami, a man who, while unable to move any part of his body, still manages to move each and every one of us, as he teaches us a part of life's intimate dance. | 70 | Dani Menkin | USA | English, Hebrew, Spanish | Festival |
| 2006 | A Journey of the Spirit | "A Journey of Spirit" tells the story of Debbie Friedman (z"l), legendary performer, composer, recording artist, teacher, and passionate Jewish visionary who profoundly influenced and enriched contemporary Jewish music. Debbie changed the face of Jewish liturgy throughout the world. She integrated contemporary melody with Jewish liturgy to transform Jewish sacred music, making the text accessible to a large and diverse audience. Viewers are treated to a lively and heartfelt exchange as "A Journey of Spirit" places the debate about contemporary versus traditional prayer music squarely on the table. | 75 | Ann Coppel | USA | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2006 | Backseat Bingo | "Backseat Bingo" is a funny and poignant animated documentary about senior citizens and romance. These seniors talk frankly about dating, companionship, and sexual desire. Some of the qualities they are looking for: "sexy senior seeks same," "good looking," "no Republicans please," and "someone who can dance." | 6 | Liz Blazer | USA | English | Festival |
| 2006 | Bending Light | A short film shot in Austin, TX, in 2005. The setting is a World War II German concentration camp. | 14 | Steve Wolf | USA | English | Festival |
| 2006 | It's Cheaper to Kippah | Information unavailable | 6 | Brian Ash | USA | English | Festival |
| 2006 | Devil & Manny Schmeckstein | Tired and washed-up veteran Borsch Belt stand-up comedian Manny Schmeckstein dies of a heart attack while performing his lousy act on stage. Manny goes straight to hell for a lifetime of bad jokes. However, the Devil gives Manny a chance at redemption: If Schmeckstein can get a single laugh from one of his jokes, he can then go to Heaven. | 7 | Jim Goodman | USA | English | Festival |
| 2006 | Go For Zucker! | Jaeckie Zucker is a hard-living, hustling former East German celebrity sportscaster, and his quasi-Orthodox brother Samuel is from the West. Jaeckie is up to his ears in debt again, facing jail, divorce and general ruin, when word comes that his mother has died, leaving an inheritance. But according to his mother's will, before he can cash, in Zucker first must reconcile with his long-estranged brother, who is arriving the next day, family in tow, expecting to sit shiva for seven days. Can the secular Zucker and his non-Jewish wife pass as observant? And will he be able to sneak away to compete in a high-stakes pool tournament? | 95 | Dani Levy | Germany | German | Festival |
| 2006 | Goodbye Holland | This shocking documentary uncovers the painful truth about a country's indifference and collaboration during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands. The film also deals with the period during and after liberation when citizens and government officials met Jews with an icy reception. In a moving personal exploration of a national betrayal, Willy Lindwer shatters myths about Dutch tolerance. | 90 | Willy Lindwer | Netherlands | Dutch and English | Festival |
| 2006 | Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School | Hineini (Hebrew for 'Here I am') chronicles the story of one student's courageous fight to establish a gay-straight alliance at a Jewish high school in the Boston area and the transformative impact of her campaign on everyone involved. Beyond the struggle to create a supportive environment for gay and lesbian students and teachers at the school, this is the story of a community wrestling with the very definition of pluralism and diversity in a Jewish context. Shulamit Izen enters 9th grade at The New Jewish High School (now Gann Academy), longing to connect more deeply with her Jewish faith. She also starts school as a lesbian. Using interviews with Shulamit, her family, teachers, and other students, both those who support her campaign and those who oppose it, the film allows the members of this community to tell their own story as it unfolds. What emerges is a potent story of Jewish pluralism and a community navigating the cross-currents of Jewish tradition and social change. | 60 | Irena Fayngold | USA | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2006 | Hungarian Servant | A Hungarian deportee in a German concentration camp is selected to work as a servant to the Nazi commandant, August Dailermann, and his wife. The eloquent and cultured Hungarian Jew exploits Dailermann's love of opera and music and his wife's vanity in a futile attempt to preserve certain works of art and the lives of musicians and artists deported to the death camp where black smoke, visible from the Nazi's elegant quarters, veils the atrocities within his domain. The incongruity of art and music in the death camp is an unnerving reminder of tragic cultural depletion. | 108 | Giorgio Molteni, Massimo Piesco | Italy | Italian | Festival |
| 2006 | Isn't This a Time! | "WASN'T THAT A TIME" (1981) took a winsome look at the seemingly last reunion of the legendary folk group The Weavers. Nearly two decades later, The Weavers are surprisingly back, now well into their 70s and 80's, yet as outspoken as ever, at Carnegie Hall, joining many of folk music's leading lights to honor an unsung American hero: music impresario Harold Leventhal. A magical evening: that of a family of artists who were never stymied by hardship, censorship, or even generation gaps, to bring an intoxicating, heart-stirring brew of American history, political chronicles and powerful music. Certainly no one could have foreseen Pete Seeger, Fred Hellerman, Ronnie Gilbert, and Erik Darling getting together again in 2003, joined by Peter, Paul and Mary, Theodore Bikel, Leon Bibb, Arlo Guthrie, Sarah Lee Guthrie, and Tao Rodriguez-Seeger. Then again, no one could have foreseen the incredible shifts and rifts in American society that have once again sparked The Weavers' irrepressible spirit of speaking out through music. | 90 | Jim Brown | USA | English | Festival |
| 2006 | Jew Jube Lives | Jewish rap star Jew Jube, aka Shmuley Zeidelman, is a pop culture phenomenon. His mass appeal is reflected in astronomical album sales that transcend age, race,and religion. We catch up with Jew Jube as he is shooting the music video for his latest hit "Be Your Own Messiah" and discuss plans for his upcoming controversial tour. Through interviews with his overprotective mother (Luba Goy), his guilt-ridden German manager (Bruce Hunter), and Jew Jube himself (Michael Cohen), we capture a glimpse of this enigmatic rapper that some dare say is a prophet. | 6 | Michael Davidson | USA | English | Festival |
| 2006 | Keep Not Silent - Orthodykes | This profoundly moving film explore the clandestine struggle of three women fighting for their right to love within their Orthodox Communities in Jerusalem. All three are lesbians and members of a secret support group called the "Ortho-Dykes." | 52 | Ilil Alexander | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2006 | Men On Wheels | The story of two disabled war veterans reveals their intimate relationship with their spouses and children. Through wheelchair dancing, they try to overcome their impaired sexual self-image and handicap | 54 | Moran Zuckerman | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2006 | Mixed Blessings | There are over one million Jewish-Christian interfaith couples in the United States. "MIXED BLESSINGS" explores the religious challenges that occur within families who are raising children in a Jewish-Christian home. The film shows the emotional process couples encounter as they try to come to terms with their own spiritual and religious beliefs, and how these beliefs are transmitted to their children. How does each individual within a relationship examine and articulate his or her own beliefs to their spouse? How do people talk about beliefs or traditions that they may be questioning or are unsure of? What happens when someone's faith was not important before but becomes important after the birth of a child? The filmmaker follows four unique couples as they struggle to deal with these difficult issues of trust, communication, and faith. "MIXED BLESSINGS" is a balanced, respectful exploration of the decisions interfaith couples make when raising their children, dissecting the familial role of religion, and examining how religious choices can make or break a marriage. | 57 | Jennifer Kaplan | USA | English | Festival |
| 2006 | Postwoman | With a pop radio station as her muse, a shy, middle-aged postwoman goes after love the only way she knows how: by stealing it. Smitten with a gentleman on her route, Luna swipes his mail and poses as his lonely-hearts pen pal, but even then she can't work up the confidence to face him. | 50 | Dina Zvi Riklis | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2006 | Protocols of Zion | A documentary about the rise of anti-Semitism in the USA after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. | 95 | Marc Levin | USA | English | Festival |
| 2006 | Sentenced to Marriage (Mekudeshet) | Three young married women are trapped by the religious courts. They can't get a divorce because for the court to grant one they need their husband's consent. They don't know when they will be set free because the date of their release depends on their husband's whim. They are forbidden to have relationships because a married woman is forbidden to another man. They are condemned to be barren, as a married woman is forbidden to bear another's child. Their voices are silenced because they are young anonymous women whose pain and suffering is embedded in the law of a democratic country in the 21st century. The film follows Tamar, Sari and Smadar's Kafkaesque struggle over a period of two years. Each of these three young women is doing all she can to obtain a divorce with the help of a group of female orthodox rabbinical advocates. | 65 | Anat Zuria | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2006 | Shorts by Jessica Shokrian | L.A.-based Persian photographer Jessica Shokfrian's series of short films about the L.A.-based Persian community. | 32 | Jessica Shokrian | USA | None | Festival |
| 2006 | Silent Exodus | They were more than a million Jews. This is the number of forgotten fugitives expelled from the Arab world between 1946 and 1974, and whom history would like to forget, while the victims themselves have hidden their fate under a veil of modesty. The Jews have been living in Arabic lands for thousands of years and seemed to accept their fate forever, some even considering their survival as a miracle. But 1948, the beginning of their exodus, was also the birth of the State of Israel. And, while the Arab armies were preparing to invade the young refugee-country, while the survivors of the Shoah were piling up in dangerous boats to fulfill at last the return to the land of their dreams and their prayers, a few hundred thousand Arabs from Palestine were getting ready to flee their home, convinced that they would return as winners and conquerors. They were soon going to fill up the refugee camps built on their brothers' land, and, because of their refusal to integrate, pass on their refugee status to the next generations. The Jews did not get any special status. They had just returned to the Land of their fathers. And if they came from Aden, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Morocco, Tunisia or Libya, if they had lost everything and sometimes even relatives, memories and cemeteries, it is in Israel and the West that they were ready to rebuild their lives. They did so without ever asking for any compensation, any right to return, or even wishing that their story be told. | 58 | Pierre Rehov | Israel | French, Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2006 | The Lady is a Champ | This is a film about gender, human rights, and the pursuit of equality. As coach of a women's basketball team in Israel, Orna Ostfeld competes for the national championship, but outside the basketball court she fights for equal support of women's sports. Ostfeld faces her biggest challenge in the Supreme Court. The film demonstrates the perseverance and character. | 60 | Amit Azaz | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2006 | The Syrian Bride | In Majdal Shams, the largest Druze village in Golan Heights on the Israeli-Syrian border, the Druze bride Mona is engaged to get married to Tallel, a television comedian who works in the Revolution Studios in Damascus, Syria. They have never met each other because of the occupation of the area by Israel since 1967; when Mona moves to Syria, she will lose her undefined nationality and will never be allowed to return home. Mona's father Hammed is a pro-Syrian political activist who is on probation by the Israeli government. His older son, Hatten, married a Russian woman eight years ago and was banished from Majdal Shams by the religious leaders and his father. His brother, Marwan, is a wolf trader who lives in Italy. His sister, Amal, has two teenager daughters and has the intention to join the university, but her marriage to Amin is in crisis. When the family gathers for Mona's wedding, an insane bureaucracy jeopardizes the ceremony. | 97 | Eran Riklis | France, Germany, Israel | Arabic, English, Hebrew, Russian, French | Festival |
| 2006 | The Thing About My Folks | Ben's dad, Sam, shows up one night with a note from Ben's mother, saying that she has left. While Ben's wife and his three sisters try to find her, Ben takes Sam on a day trip that turns into a road trip. Starring Paul Reiser (also the writer), Peter Falk, and Olympia Dukakis. | 96 | Raymond De Felitta | USA | English | Festival |
| 2006 | Ushpizin | An Orthodox Jewish couple's faith is tested after praying to the Lord for a child on the Succoth holiday. | 90 | Gidi Dar | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2006 | Women For Sale | Seven young women from Eastern Europe accept to become prostitutes for a year in exchange for a journey that will take them from Belgrade to Marseilles and provide them with a French passport. Irina, a worker from a Moscow suburb, brings along Enki, her young son, hidden among her luggage. She's ready to do anything to give him a brighter future. Leila, a former prostitute employed to watch over the other girls, enlists Anna, her own daughter, into the group with the hope of setting her free once they're in France. Emma thinks that she'll be able to finish her medical studies and tries to put the rest of what awaits out of her mind. Michaela, a Chechen, flees the war and her country, and Loumia intends to locate her husband-to-be. Mirka, pious and ambiguous, gets lost in her contradictions and perceives the journey as yet another trial in her life. Mysterious Han Suan keeps herself to herself... Seven young innocent women, victims of a ruthless Mafia. | 90 | Jean-Claude Jean | France | French | Festival |
| 2005 | Behind Enemy Lines | An Israeli police officer and a Palestinian journalist, once friends, now on bitterly divided sides of a conflict, reunite for an emotional journey through Jerusalem and the landscape of the Intifada, as each attempts to convince the other of his own truth. Benny Hernes, a captain in the Israeli police force, first met journalist Adnan Joulani on a peace mission to Japan four years ago, and they formed a surprising and optimistic friendship. In the intervening time, however, a member of Adnan's family has been killed by settlers, and Adnan's frustration rises as he covers the conflict daily as a journalist. Benny has meanwhile become a settler and trains special Israeli forces to combat Palestinian militants. In Dov Gil-Har's moving and compassionate documentary, Benny and Adnan agree to meet again, spending four days traveling to locations that each has chosen to represent his own reality in the conflict. From the Holocaust Memorial of Yad Vashem and the Temple Mount, to a Jenin refugee camp, Benny and Adnan struggle to find a way past the violence that separates them, and for a moment to see through the other's eyes. | 64 | Dov Gil-Har | Israel | Arabic, English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2005 | Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi | Sixteen-year-old Shlomi, an Israeli, cares for everyone in his life but himself. Shlomi lives with his jealous and pretentious mother, his soldier brother, and their elderly grandfather. Although not doing well in school, Shlomi is a gifted cook and takes care of most household chores, while all the grownups around him are busy with their childish affairs, neglect him, and ignore his dyslexia. Shlomi tries to be invisible, especially at school, until a routine math test catches the attention of Shlomi's teacher, who suspects that a unique gift lies behind that dormant facade. The school's headmaster takes Shlomi under his wing, and Shlomi blossoms. | 94 | Shemi Zarhin | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2005 | Moving Heaven and Earth | "Moving Heaven and Earth" tells the little-known story of the Abayudaya, an independent community of Jews in rural Uganda. In a remote village, amidst conditions of extreme poverty, they preserve their tradition and faith, despite enormous obstacles. The film documents the sacrifices they have made to be Jews, including persecution under Idi Amin, and their struggle for recognition from the institutions of world Jewry, whose definition of who is a Jew is often too narrow to include them. Even after a formal conversion by Reform and Conservative U.S. rabbis, the debate persists. Their exclusion exposes a power struggle within Jewish culture, and the film asks a resonant question about Jewish identity while celebrating the music, culture, and devotion of these African Jews. | 45 | Debra Gonsher Vinik, David Vinik | Uganda, USA | English | Festival |
| 2005 | One of the Lamed Vav | "The compelling story of Judaism's Mahatma Gandhi, a saintly rabbi who stood up to the might of the British Empire in Palestine armed only with love and non-violence." | 60 | Moshe Alafi | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2005 | Paper Clips | As a part of their study of the Holocaust, the children of the Whitwell, TN, Middle School try to collect six million paper clips representing the six million Jews killed by the Nazis, and grows to include millions of others killed. | 82 | Elliot Berlin, Joe Fab | USA | English | Festival |
| 2005 | Personal Goals | A nine-year-old boy wants to please his soccer-loving father. But try as he may, he remains a lousy athlete. Will love prove stronger than machismo? | 16 | Rom Carmeli | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2005 | Sea Horses | Noam is a daredevil. He performs dangerous balancing acts on the balustrade of his balcony, high above the traffic below. He sees this game as a sort of contest between himself and the world. If he wins, his father will come back and his parents will get back together. That night, his mother announces to Noam and his two sisters that the family is moving away from Tel Aviv, without their father. A simple, beautifully crafted story about how a child experiences his parents' divorce. | 17 | Nir Bergman | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2005 | Simon Magus | The feature debut of young British writer/director Ben Hopkins. A magical tale of Polish Jewry. A story of fantasy, romance, mysticism and earthy humor. Simon Magus is an outcast from the village who is troubled by visits from the devil. He exists in a world of 'magic realism' where people laugh, cry and fall in love, where magic and reality are woven together. The film deals with themes as serious as racial hatred, insanity, and spirituality in a tone which is both warm and humorous. The story abounds with colorful and individual characters, like a Shakespearean comedy mixed with a Yiddish fairy tale. | 106 | Ben Hopkins | UK | English | Festival |
| 2005 | The Main Suspect | The death of thirteen Israeli-Arabs, during a protest demonstration in Israel in October 2000, galvanized the nation. It was the first time that Israeli-Arab citizens had joined Palestinians in voicing opposition to the Occupation, and their deaths brought up questions of their place in Israeli society. For veteran filmmaker Yaky Yosha, the chief villain of the piece was obvious; Alik Cohen, the charismatic, enigmatic Galilee police chief. Yosha, however, soon discovered that the truth behind the story was a lot murkier and less simple than first appeared. Culminating in a historic meeting between Cohen and a group of Israeli-Arabs, The Main Suspect is a challenging look at two solitudes. | 61 | Yaky Yosha | Israel | Hebrew, Arabic | Festival |
| 2005 | Walk on Water | This enthralling award-winning film by internationally-acclaimed director Eytan Fox explores the motives, strengths, and, ultimately, the humanity of an Israeli assassin sent to rectify a wrong committed five decades earlier. Eyal is a top assassin in the Israeli secret service. He has killed terrorists before, but this time he is sent to eliminate an aging former Nazi war criminal. During his mission, Eyal meets his target's granddaughter and grandson, who inadvertently help him uncover his own troubled history and face his demons, while they discover the ugly truth their family has hidden from them for decades. What began as a straightforward mission, has suddenly escalated in intensity and complexity thrusting three very different people into a thrilling triangle of murder, friendship, and fate. | 103 | Eytan Fox | Israel | English, German, Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish | Festival |
| 2005 | Watermarks | Watermarks is the story of the champion women swimmers of the legendary Jewish sports club, Hakoah Vienna. Hakoah was founded in 1909 in response to the notorious Aryan Paragraph, which forbade Austrian sports clubs from accepting Jewish athletes. After the Anschluss in 1938, the Nazis shut down the club, but the swimmers managed to flee the country before the war broke out. Sixty-five years later, director Yaron Zilberman meets members of the women's swim team in their homes and arranges for them to have a reunion in their old swimming pool in Vienna, Told by the swimmers, now in their eighties, Watermarks is about a group of young girls with a passion to be the best. It is the story of seven outstanding athletes who still swim daily as they age with grace. | 80 | Yaron Zilberman | Austria | English, German, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2005 | Wonderous Oblivion | Eleven-year-old David Wiseman is mad about cricket but no good at it. He has the entire kit but none of the skill, and he's a laughingstock at school. So when a Jamaican family moves in next door and builds a cricket net in the back garden, David is in seventh heaven. But this is 1960s Britain, and when the neighbours start to make life difficult for the new arrivals, David's family is caught in the middle, and he has to choose between fitting in and standing up for the new friends who have turned his world upside-down. | 106 | Paul Morrison | UK | English | Festival |
| 2004 | A Trumpet in the Wadi | A love story in Israel in the 80's about an Arab woman and a newcomer from Russia. | 100 | Lena Chaplin, Stanislav Chaplin | Israel | Hebrew, Arabic | Festival |
| 2004 | Advice and Dissent | A frustrated businessman, Jeffrey Goldman, tries to end his hopeless marriage to his wife, Ellen, by asking his local rabbi to place a curse on her. The rabbi refuses but gives Goldman peculiar advice on how to do away with her, setting into motion a series of unexpected events. | 21 | Leib Cohen | United States | English | Festival |
| 2004 | As If Nothing Happened | Based on the personal experience of the director, this film focuses on one family waiting to hear news of a son who may be involved in a terrorist incident. | 50 | Ayelet Bargur | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2004 | Blessings: Roomates in Jerusalem | "BLESSINGS" follows Shulamit Cohen (75 years old) and Ilana Blumenfeld (65 years old) as they go about their daily lives, working, playing, praying. They miss their parents and friends who have passed away. They 'adopt' a young girl with Down Syndrome. Shulamit is diagnosed with cancer and undergoes a mastectomy. A car bomb explodes just outside the back door of their home. They celebrate their Bat Mitzvah in a reform synagogue in Jerusalem. Through it all, their relationship deepens. | 45 | Paula Weiman-Kelman | Israel | Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2004 | Dugit Over Troubled Water | A Documentary about a fisherman's co-op, jointly founded by Israeli settlers and Gazan Palestinian fisherman, before and after the outbreak of the Second Intifadah. A fascinating story of friendship, politics, and transient allegances. | 58 | Gil Karni | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2004 | Forget Baghdad: Jews and Arabs,The Iraqi Connection | A filmic reflection about the stereotypes of "the Jew" and " the Arab" through one hundred years of film, linked with the biographies of four extraordinary people: Iraqi-Jewish communists. | 112 | Samir | Germany, Switzerland | Hebrew, English , Arabic | Festival |
| 2004 | Gloomy Sunday | "Gloomy Sunday" is a superb film woven aaround a fascinating, true story of a famous Hungarian musical composition, "Gloomy Sunday." As the turmoil of World War II engulfs Hungary, a Budapest eatery hosts its own conflicts as a love triangle escalates between Laszlo, the restaurateur, Ilona, the love of his life, and Andras, a composer. | 112 | Rolf Schubel | Germany, Hungary | German, English, Hungarian | Festival |
| 2004 | Mamadrama | Mamadrama combines film clips, cultural commentary, interviews with Hollywood and Israeli filmmakers, and footage from Schwarz's earlier films in an exploration of the image of the Jewish mother in film beginning with early silent and Yiddish films up through contemporary movies. Hollywood directors Paul Mazursky, Paul Bogart, and Larry Peerce and actress Lainie Kazan reflect on their Jewish mothers. Critics Patricia Erens, J. Hoberman, Michael Medved, Amy Kronish, and Sharon Rivo discuss the changing image of the Jewish mother on screen. Israeli filmmakers Avram Hefner and Zepel Yeshurun and actress Gila Almagor illustrate the uniqueness of Israeli film images. | 73 | Monique Schwarz | Australia | English | Festival |
| 2004 | Manhood | "Manhood" is a darkly funny family drama that probes the depths of masulinity in America. The film explores what it means to be a father as Jack, a photographer and reformed womanizer, becomes a single parent to his teenage son. Nick Roth, Jeaneane Garofalo, and John Ritter, in his last film, star in this stylish black comedy. | 82 | Bobby Roth | USA | English | Festival |
| 2004 | Master of the Game | Austin director Stolhand's third feature, "Master of the Game," is a gripping tale of survival. A stunning thriller, the film tells the story of a WWII soldier who challenges his Nazi captors to assume the roles of condemned prisoners for the purpose of a metaphysical question: is authority natural or socially constructed. | 90 | Jeff Stolhand | USA | English | Festival |
| 2004 | Once | Filmmaker Ellen Flanders meditates on Yiddish. loss, and the construction of memory through language. | 12 | Ellen Flanders | Canada | English, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2004 | Purity | "Purity" examines the ancient laws and rituals shaping women's lives and sexuality within Jewish Orthodoxy. Beautifully incorporating images with interview, "Purity" presents the hidden struggle of religious women to maintain their cultural traditions and individual needs within the framework of a strict, masculine religious law. | 63 | Anat Zuria | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2004 | The Last Letter | "The Last Letter" is legendary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman's poignant portrayal of a Russian Jewish woman living in a Ukrainian city seized by the Germans who writes her son one last letter as she remembers her life and faces her death. | 61 | Frederick Wiseman | France | French | Festival |
| 2004 | Zahor | Dedicated to the memory of Jewish individuals and families persecuted by the Nazis, "Zahor" celebrates the life of those who are usually mentioned only as victims and gives them back their dignity and identities as living, loving, laughing, and fighting human beings. | 22 | Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir | France | French | Festival |
| 2002 | A Bridge of Books | A moving, funny chronicle of an enterprising 23-year-old and his quest to rescue the world's Yiddish books. | 13 | Sam Ball | USA | English | Festival |
| 2002 | Divided We Fall | Earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film of 2000, "DIVIDED WE FALL" tells the true and bittersweet story of a Czechoslovakian couple whose village has been taken over by Nazis during World War II. Josef and Marie Cizek lead a simple and restricted life in their small apartment, while outside, the turmoil of war and prejudice is a constant threat. When they decide to hide a young Jewish neighbor in their home, the danger of their situation increases, especially since they have a constant visitor, Horst, a former colleague of Josef's and a German sympathizer with eyes for Marie. When she rejects his advances, he seeks revenge by trying to move a Nazi clerk into their home, forcing the couple to tell a lie that will change their lives forever. With an engrossing, historically-charged story and subtle yet stirring performances, "DIVIDED WE FALL" is a film of depth and humanity that you'll never forget. | 122 | 122 | Czech Republic | Czech | Festival |
| 2002 | Shalom Y'all | A young man jumps into his old Cadillac on a search for himself and his unique Southern Jewish roots. Covering 4,200 miles through Delta flatlands, small towns in Mississippi, suburban subdivisions, Texas ranches, and sprawling Sunbelt metropolises, he discovers the vibrant regional culture that blends the Old World with the New South. A Southern story with a Jewish flavor, this documentary delivers a rite of passage, an homage to family, a youthful adventure, and a spiritual journey. | 60 | Brian Bain | USA | English | Festival |
| 2002 | Strange Fruit | In 1937, after seeing a photo depicting the lynching of a black man in the south, Bronx-born high school teacher Abel Meeropol wrote a poem entitled "Strange Fruit" that begins with the words: "Southern trees bear a strange fruit / Blood on the leaves and blood at the root." He set the poem to music and a few years later convinced Billie Holiday to record it in a legendary heartbreaking performance. Intertwining jazz genealogy, biography, performance footage, and the history of lynching, director Joel Katz fashions a fascinating discovery of the lost story behind a true American classic. | 57 | Joel Katz | USA | English | Festival |
| 2002 | The House I Live In | The song, "The House I Live In," by Abel Meeropol, was an appeal for religious and racial tolerance. Written in 1942, the song was recorded by Frank Sinatra and later made into a film short that won an Academy Award. | 10 | Mervyn LeRoy | USA | English | Festival |
| 2002 | The Komediant | The glory days of the Yiddish stage are brought to life in this funny saga of a legendary theatrical family, The Bursteins. Smoothly incorporating rare archival footage and interviews with Yiddish stage veterans, this tightly edited, briskly paced documentary is as richly bittersweet , filled with the laughter and tears, schmaltz and grit , as the Yiddish theater itself. | 82 | Arnon Goldfinger | Israel | English, Yiddish, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2002 | Time of Favor | Is today's fanaticism tomorrow's policy? In a West Bank settlement, Rabbi Meltzer has a grand design: he's building a movement "to pray at the Temple Mount." His yeshiva has scholars, and the settlement is getting its own military company to be commanded by Menachem, a disciple of the rabbi. He also wants his daughter, Michal, to marry Pini, the yeshiva's best scholar. Michal has no interest in Pini, but she is attracted to Menachem. When she rebuffs Pini, he hatches a bold and secret plan. Is jealousy the motivation or something else? Meanwhile, the army and Mossad are closely watching the rabbi's activities and Menachem's military training. Who is trustworthy? | 102 | Joseph Cedar | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2022 | America | An Israeli man returns to Israel after 10 years in America. An encounter with a childhood friend and his future-wife will change everyone's lives. A story set between a flower shop and an ancient monastery, a swimming pool and the Mediterranean Sea, life and death - and somewhere in the middle. After the success of "The Cakemaker", writer/director Ofir Raul Graizer returns with an affectionate tribute to 60s and 70s cinema in a film full of emotion, colour and fragrance that pays homage to values such as friendship, love and moral responsibility. | 127 | Ofir Raul Graizer | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2022 | Bad Nazi, Good Nazi | More than 70 years after WWII, Thalau - a small village in Germany - comes to terms with the complex legacy of native son Wilm Hosenfeld, the Nazi officer widely known for saving Wladyslaw Szpilman - "The Pianist", who is now revealed to have been a serial rescuer. Hosenfeld's personal diaries record his chilling, gradual disillusionment with the Nazi war machine he belonged to and that Szpilman, incredibly, is just one of sixty people he saved. Thalau's group of supporters are inspired to have Hosenfeld memorialized at the local school he led before enlisting in Hitler's army, but the villagers struggle to come to terms with the complicated legacy of a man they want to forget; a Nazi officer and a serial rescuer. | 52 | Chanoch Ze'evi | Israel | German, Polish | Festival |
| 2022 | Between Walls | Within the borders of the Old City of Jerusalem Platoon C, a special army unit, is there to keep things calm and secure. The platoon includes a unique combination of characters from all corners of Israeli society, supporting each other in their difficult task. Despite daily tensions and also violence at this most special place on earth, the soldiers strive to achieve external and internal peace each day from a new. | 69 | Rotem Zisman Cohen, Moris Cohen | Israel | Hebrew, Arabic, English | Festival |
| 2022 | Exodus 91 | A hybrid docudrama film that follows Israeli diplomat, Asher Naim, on a seemingly insurmountable mission to bring 15,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. As Asher learns more about these African Jews, he finds himself between worlds and facing a crisis of faith in himself and his country. The docudrama follows the behind-the-scenes politics leading up to Operation Solomon - the two day airlift in May 1991 pulled off in climactic chaos of the Ethiopian Civil War. | 90 | Micah Smith | Israel | Hebrew, Amharic, English | Festival |
| 2022 | Farewell, Mr. Haffmann | PARIS 1941. FranÂois Mercier is an ordinary man whose only goal is to start a family with Blanche, the woman he loves. FranÂois works for Mr. Haffmann, a talented Jewish jeweler. Under the German occupation, the employer and employee are forced to strike a deal which, over the following months, will upend the fate of all concerned. | 115 | Fred CavayÂŽ | France, Belgium | French | Festival |
| 2022 | Karaoke | Meir and Tova (60) live in a middle-class suburb and have been in a dull and sleepy relationship for years. When a new neighbor moves into the upper penthouse of their building, their whole world is turned upside down. Attractive, showy, modern, Itsik is everything they're not. As they lose themselves into a noxious fascination, their lust for life is slowly reignited. | 103 | Moshe Rosenthal | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2022 | Lost Transport | In the spring of 1945 a train deporting hundreds of Jewish prisoners gets stranded near a small German village occupied by the Red Army. Condemned to each other and in a context of deep mistrust, desperation and revenge, an unexpected friendship emerges between Russian sniper Vera, village girl Winnie and Jewish-Dutch woman Simone. | 100 | Saskia Diesing | Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany | Dutch, German, Russian, English | Festival |
| 2022 | March '68 | Two young students, Hania and Janek, meet and fall in love in the midst of social turmoil and Jewish discrimination in 1960s Warsaw. While the young lovers are uninterested in politics, they find themselves unable to avoid it when Hania's father and mother lose their jobs due to the anti-Semitic purge and are forced to emigrate. Hania does not want to leave Janek, and the couple soon participate in a protest rally at the university where they discover freedom comes at a high price. | 117 | Krzysztof Lang | Poland | Polish | Festival |
| 2022 | Perfect Strangers | Seven childhood friends with a lot of shared history and experiences, and a mutual death from their past, meet for dinner to watch a rare lunar eclipse. Their standard bourgeois encounter takes an unexpected turn when they start playing a game that'll change the course of their lives forever: each text message, call or notification they receive on their phones is revealed for all to see. Betrayals, lies, secrets and unresolved issues dating back 20 years simmer to the surface and put their long standing friendships to the test. | 95 | Lior Ashkenazi | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2022 | Reckonings | They met in secret to negotiate the unthinkable - compensation for the survivors of the largest mass genocide in history. Survivors were in urgent need of help, but how could reparations be determined for the unprecedented destruction and suffering of a people? Reckonings explores this untold true story set in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Roberta Grossman, Reckonings recounts the tense negotiations between Jewish and German leaders. Under the constant threat of violence, they forged ahead, knowing it would never be enough but hoping it could at least be an acknowledgement and a step towards healing. | 74 | Roberta Grossman | USA | English, German, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2022 | Schachten | The young Jewish Austrian businessman Victor is a witness to how the prosection of a Nazi crime perpetrated against his family unjustly fails in the courtroom. The political and legal system in 1960's Austria is still run by former Nazis and there is no avenue for Victor to change matters.. When Victor also loses his grief stricken father and his girlfriend's family opposes their relationship and his being Jewish, Victor completely loses faith in the system and pursues matters via a different path. | 110 | Thomas Roth | Austria | German | Festival |
| 2022 | The Man in the Basement | Simon and Helen live in Paris together, they decide to sell a basement in their building. The man who buys it has a troubled past and the couple's life is turning upside down | 114 | Philippe Le Guay | France | French | Festival |
| 2022 | The Replacement (El Sustituto) | 1982. A young police officer hardened in the worst neighbourhoods of Madrid accepts a post in a small village by the sea in the hope of healing his sick daughter and gaining some inner peace. But once there he becomes involved in the investigation of the strange murder of the inspector he replaced. The inquiry will lead him to a group of Nazi elders who live a heavenly and happy retreat on the coast. | 117 | Oscar Aibar | Spain | Spanish | Festival |
| 2022 | Who Are the Marcuses | Who Are the Marcuses? reconstructs the lives of Holocaust refugees Lottie and Howard Marcus, an unassuming couple from Great Neck, New York, who retired to a modest two-bedroom apartment in San Diego, California. Former dentist Howard passed away in 2014 at age 104. Lottie passed less than two years later. In 2016, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev announced the Marcuses had given them over half a billion dollars: the largest single charitable donation to the State of Israel in its history. The film simultaneously traces the development of Israel's vital water technology from pre-state to the present; how the Marcuses' endowment to BGU has ensured its continued leading-edge development in this science for not only the Israeli people, but the world as a whole; sets the family's gift in geopolitical context; and explores both its impact and implications for regional peace through technology exchange. | 90 | Matthew Mishory | USA, Israel | English | Festival |
| 2022 | Who's Afraid of Jewish Humor? | Jewish humor has travelled from the Shtetl to Hollywood, from the Torah to Comic books. Jewish humor is tradition and pop culture and also a cliche? Especially in Germany and Austria, Jewish jokes became very popular after the Second World War. Jewish humor is, allegedly, self-ironic and laughing about the Jews together with the Jews seems like a convenient way for the perpetrator countries to cope with their dark pasts. But is Jewish humor really always self-mocking or is the matter more complex? In the documentary, rabbis, comedians and writers from Germany, Austria, France and Israel have their say. Who owns Jewish humour and who owns the laughter? | 72 | Jascha Hannover | Germany | German, French, English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2022 | Anne | Two actresses wait to audition for the role of a lifetime. That role? Anne Frank. What could go wrong? | 10 | Desiree Abeyta | US | English | Festival |
| 2022 | Cinema Rex | In the divided city of Jerusalem in 1938, a Jewish boy and an Arab girl form a special friendship at The Cinema Rex based on one mutual language - the language of cinema. | 8 | Mayan Engelman, Eliran Peled | Israel | English, Hebrew, Arabic | Festival |
| 2022 | Dreyfus Drei | Dreyfus Drei is a film about family, identity and returning to Germany from Australia Australian Jewish artist Ella Dreyfus grew up with little knowledge of her family's tragic losses in the Holocaust. She sets out to uncover their history with her uncle George in Melbourne and her cousin Jonathan in Berlin, and finds her own way of re-connecting to Germany. The short documentary is a poetic film that follows Ella's search for the Dreyfus histories and traces of her late father's life. | 30 | Ella Dreyfus, Janis Westphal | Germany, Australia | English, German | Festival |
| 2022 | Finding a Town's Past | The John Paul II Academic High School in Bia_a Podlaska, Poland took part in the School of Dialogue program in 2021. They research the Jewish history of their town and try, in a small way, to bring it back to life. | 6 | Wojtek Kaniewski | Poland | Polish | Festival |
| 2022 | Fine | A mother, a father and two daughters are on their way to a holiday feast. The girls are sleeping peacefully in the back seat, but their tranquility is disturbed when their dad hears a beloved song and tries to share the experience with them. A terrific and relatable comedy starring the filmmaker's real-life family. | 9 | Maya Yadlin | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2022 | Frum Dogs of Hendon | Seen as aggressive and dirty, dogs have had a bad reputation in religious Jewish circles for centuries. Dog lovers in Hendon (UK) however, prove that being Frum and having a furry, four-legged best friend are not mutually exclusive. | 4 | Dan Jacobs | UK | English | Festival |
| 2022 | Funeral of a Marriage Counselor | Following the sudden death of their long-term and much-too-depended-upon Jewish counsellor, a couple in their 50s take a chaotic stab at rebalancing their relationship, while grappling with their own mortality. | 13 | Ronit Meranda | UK | English | Festival |
| 2022 | Gefilte Fish | On its surface, Gefilte Fish is a story of one family meal in the Bronx. That brief moment in time connects past, present, and future, revealing trauma from the Holocaust, incest, and loss of parents -- and the silence that perpetuates the pain. | 7 | Yuliya Lanina | USA/Austria | English | Festival |
| 2022 | Kafkas | Massachusetts, 1987. Fran is a college-educated bag of nerves with a head full of philosophy and an unhealthy obsession with Franz Kafka. In the late hours of the night she cold-calls men across America who have the surname Kafka in hope of finding her soulmate. But the Kafkas of her day are more interested in phone sex than philosophy and, as the night wears on, rejection after rejection take their toll. Fantasy begins to merge with reality and Franz •s fragile mental state threatens to collapse like a house of cards.a head full of philosophy and an unhealthy obsession with Franz Kafka. In the late hours of the night she cold-calls men across America who have the surname Kafka in hope of finding her soulmate. But the Kafkas of her day are more interested in phone sex than philosophy and, as the night wears on, rejection after rejection take their toll. Fantasy begins to merge with reality and Franz's fragile mental state threatens to collapse like a house of cards. | 17 | Nick Blake | UK | English | Festival |
| 2022 | Masel Tov Cocktail | A Russian-Jewish teen in Germany offers a fierce comic take on modern Jewish life and the hypocritically tolerant way in which his world works. | 30 | Arkadij Khaet, Mickey Paatzsch | Germany | German, Russian | Festival |
| 2022 | My Father's War | My Fathers War, an animated documentary produced by Humanity in Action, brings to life the experiences of Peter Hein and his son David. As a Jewish toddler in the Netherlands in the 1940s, Peter was separated from his parents and whisked from hiding place to hiding place to escape deportation and death. Decades later, his own son David attempts to forge his own path after his father's mental health buckles under the weight of his memories. The film reveals the hereditary trauma of the Holocaust: the deep emotional wounds of forefathers passed on to children and grandchildren. Narrated by both Peter and David, the film depicts an intergenerational conversation, reverberating across the decades. | 25 | Juan Pablo De Gamboa | Germany, Netherlands | English, Dutch | Festival |
| 2022 | One Last Wish | Based on "What, Of this Goldfish, Would You Wish?" by Etgar Keret. In this bitter-sweet animation, the Fisherman and the Fish folk tale comes to life. A lonely fisherman has a magical goldfish, who grants him three wishes. He already used two wishes to help others in need. Now he is facing a grave decision; after accidentally killing a stranger, he must choose whether to keep his last wish and become a murderer. Or to use it to save a stranger's life, but in doing so he will lose the only thing that truly matters, his friend. | 10 | Galia Osmo | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2022 | Our Nappy Hair | Janet (25) is a poet from Beersheva, Tamar (32) is an actress from Tel Aviv and Comfort (42) founded and directs the Afro-Jewfro Festival in Jerusalem. Three women, three hairdressing salon, and three similar, yet different, stories about black identity, the suppression of nappy hair, and mainstream notions of ideal beauty. | Strobe effects | Festival | |||
| 2022 | Sproutland | When health food guru Sproutman dies suddenly, his widow must confront not only her loss but an entire way of life. Surrounded by groomed lawns, organic shops and youthful bodies, she navigates yoga mudras, jade eggs, and online dating while her teenage son grows increasingly alienated. If bean sprouts can't bring them together, what will? Filmed on location in the scenic Berkshires, this quirky, funny, and heartwarming short is the fiction debut of Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Cynthia Wade. Winner of 14 film festival awards. | 26 | Cynthia Wade | USA | English | Festival |
| 2022 | Susam | A Turkish-Jewish family faces a series of dilemmas when their son, Susam, locks himself in his room and does not come out on the morning of his Bar-mitzvah ceremony. With the limitations of Shabbat day rules, each member tries to find the correct way to make Susam come out. | 17 | Sami Morhayim | Drama | Festival | |
| 2022 | The Record | An antique music instrument dealer receives a magical vinyl record from a traveller. It reads your mind and plays your lost memories. Obsessed by this endless record, the antique dealer listens to it again and again, and the memories re-emerge. | 9 | Jonathan Laskar | Switzerland | French | Festival |
| 2022 | The Waltz | A beautiful animated short film that brings to life a Yiddish poem by A. Lutzky | 5 | Yulia Ruditskaya | USA | Yiddish | Festival |
| 2022 | Two Trees in Jerusalem | Two Trees in Jerusalem, an animated documentary produced by Humanity in Action, profiles the remarkable history of Eberhard and Donata Helmrich, who together saved the lives of countless Jews during the Holocaust. The pair worked as a husband-and-wife team in the eye of the storm, in Berlin and the blood-soaked fields of Eastern Europe, devising ever-more daring gambits to save any life they could, even as death surrounded them. The history is narrated by the couple's daughter Cornelia, who was called into her parents' confidence as a young child, and was imbued with an inner-strength that guided her work decades later as a politician and Commissioner for immigrant and refugee issues during the 1990s. | 27 | Juan Pablo De Gamboa | Germany | English | Festival |
| 2022 | Two Women | A nuanced adaptation of Amos Oz's short story, starring Naomi Levov (On the Spectrum) and Tali Sharon (Norman). In 1958, a kibbutznik leaves his wife for another woman. The two women then begin communicating by letter. | 16 | Yuval Kaminsky | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2022 | Visiting Ben Shemen | In the midst of the Covid pandemic, and employing WhatsApp calls, interviews, and Internet research, a New Zealand-based director seeks to better understand a significant experience in her mother's past. In 1946, three young Jewish teenagers had met at the Ben Shemen school, in Palestine. Each had been traumatised by the Holocaust and World War II. These women, now in their late eighties - one of whom is the director's mother - recount the ways in which Ben Shemen offered a healing and soul-nourishing refuge. Mixed-media and an animated sketchbook aesthetic, together with the collaging of fragments of music and sound, accompany their retrieval of memories, and the director's efforts to understand their experiences. | 16 | Miriam Harris | New Zealand | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2022 | Voices in the Void | An animated documentary from Humanity in Action, Voices in the Void recounts the remarkable "Danish Exception" of October 1943. The piece features the story of late Rabbi Bent Melchior, who, as a teenager went into hiding with his family to escape Nazi deportation. In his own words, Rabbi Melchior tells a story of heroism and survival, and of the regular Danish people who took exceptional steps to save their neighbors and ensure their safe escape to Sweden. | 18 | Juan Pablo De Gamboa | Germany, Denmark | English | Festival |
| 2022 | Women of Virtue ( Les Vertueuses) | Etel, nine years old, Orthodox Jew, has her period for the first time. Myriam, her mother, finally looks at her like a woman. Etel is delighted, until she discovers that in her religion women are impure when they have their period. | 30 | Stephanie Halfon | France | French, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2022 | Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen | The fall of 2021 marked the 50th anniversary of Fiddler on the Roof, the film Pauline Kael (The New Yorker) called the most powerful movie musical ever made. Narrated by Jeff Goldblum, FIDDLER'S JOURNEY TO THE BIG SCREEN captures the humor and drama of director Norman Jewison's quest to recreate the lost world of Jewish life in Tsarist Russia and re-envision the beloved stage hit as a wide-screen epic. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Daniel Raim puts us in the director's chair and in Jewison's heart and mind, drawing on behind-the-scenes footage and never-before-seen stills as well as original interviews with Jewison, Topol (Tevye), composer John Williams, production designer Robert F. Boyle, film critic Kenneth Turan, lyricist Sheldon Harnick, and actresses Rosalind Harris, Michele Marsh, and Neva Small (Tevye's daughters). The film explores how the experience of making Fiddler deepens Jewison as an artist and revives his soul. | 88 | Daniel Raim | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | Three Miniutes - A Lengthening | (AFS) So long as we are watching history, history is not over. THREE MINUTES:A LENGTHENING explores the human stories hidden within the celluloid. Three minutes of home movie footage, mostly in color, shot by David Kurtz in 1938, are the only known moving images left of the Jewish inhabitants of Nasielsk, Poland, before the Holocaust. Those precious minutes are examined in intricate detail to unravel the human stories hidden in the celluloid. Tracing the story of those three minutes begins with the journey of Glenn Kurtz, Author of the award-winning book, Three Minutes in Poland (FSG, 2015), to discover more about his grandfather's film, ultimately leading to identifying people and places otherwise erased from history, and helping to connect a Holocaust Survivor with his lost childhood | 69 | Bianca Stigter | Netherlands, UK | English | AJFF Connect |
| 2022 | All I Can Do | Reut, a young prosecutor, takes over a sexual assault case, based on the sole testimony of Efrat, a rebellious yet fragile victim, who lives with her wild female partner. Reut is reluctant, but as the trial progresses and Efrat collapses, Reut learns the true nature of strength, love and sisterhood. | 87 | Shiri Nevo Fridental | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | Paul Newman Behind Blue Eyes | His beauty, intelligence, and of course, color of his eyes, followed Paul Newman throughout his life. Annoyed by incessant references to his physique, the actor consistently challenged Hollywood, taking on serious roles in political and civic discourse. Paul Newman played in over 60 films, working with some of the most iconic directors in history; his career as director, reflects the diversity and richness of his artistic vision. Modest, shy, and determined to protect his own privacy, Newman often used humor to distance himself from the media frenzy and exercise freedom of thought. | 52 | Pierre-FranÂois Gaudry | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | Rabenu - I'm a Wonder Man | How did a controversial rabbi who passed away more than 200 years ago become the most influential figure on the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jews? How did a small cult of persecuted devotees who were nicknamed The Dead Hasidim become the biggest spiritual movement in Judaism today? Rabenu (Our Rabbi) delves into the most fascinating phenomenon in the Jewish world in the past decades: From the jumpers in the streets, the celebrities, Mizrahi & Ashkenazi Jews, intellectuals and hipsters, ultra-Orthodox Jews, to the dangerous criminals, all of these are brought together by one Jewish man simply referred to as Rabenu - that man is Rebbe Nachman of Breslow. In a special and surprising contemporary cinematic language, "Rabenu" brings to the screen the magic of one of Judaism's most mysterious Hassidic rabbis. | 90 | Ori Gruder | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | Yerusalem | "Yerusalem, a new feature documentary (based on the Israeli documentary series) brings to life the story of a long, dramatic and tumultuous journey as the Jewish Ethiopian community, also known as Beta-Israel, finally find their way back to the heart of the Jewish people. "Yerusalem" is the story of an isolated Jewish tribe who kept its faith for thousands of years even though they lived in a hostile Christian environment. This is the story of ancient Jewish traditions, of heroic actions and daring covert operations. But mainly, this is the story of a powerful religious yearning that has been passed down from father to son for countless generations. A desire for a "Yerusalem" tied with gold threads. "Exodus of the Black Jews"', "Rescue of the Lost Tribe" cried out international news headlines in January 1985 when the airlift known as "Operation Moses" was revealed. In one of several clandestine operations in the Ethiopian Exodus, Israeli Mossad, the US administration and world Jewry collaborated to rescue thousands of Ethiopian Jews from the hellhole refugee camps in Sudan. The London Times wrote: "The airlift was in its way as inspiring a story as the Biblical Exodus". _ "Yerusalem" is the complex story of the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel bringing the stories of the first and second generation of immigrants, rabbinical cases, Aliyah activists, Mossad personnel, ship commanders and pilots, decision-makers and many others who risked their lives to bring Ethiopian Jews to their ancestral land. Here they were required to prove their Jewishness and fight for their legitimate place in Israeli society. | 90 | Levi Zini | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | There Are No Lions in Tel Aviv | The bittersweet story of a Rabbi who envisioned the Tel Aviv's zoo in the 1930s, and was then banished from it. A parable about a new city envisioned by dreamers, replaced by indifferent bureaucrats, later replaced by real-estate tigers. | 63 | Duki Dror | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | Shadow in Baghdad | This film had a strong audience in the Arab world. I feel it had a major impact, because it went out beyond Israeli borders and into the Arab world. It sparked a rare debate, in Iraq, and in the Jewish and non-Jewish Iraqi diaspora. This debate is the greatest reward for me, as I can feel the power of the documentary to touch people emotionally and intellectually. The success of any movie is founded on its ability to move people on from square one to square two. | 70 | Duki Dror | Israel | Hebrew, Arabic | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | Redemption | Being able to care for a gravely ill daughter is of the utmost importance to a loving father. The treatment which is to give the child a new chance at life is something the poorly paid widower simply can't afford. The idea to start performing again with a rock band from his early days, however, sees the devout man confronting not only those around him but above all himself as well. | 100 | Joseph Madmony and Boaz Yehonatan Yaakov | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | The Other Story | Two rebellious young women, one fleeing the chaos of secular hedonism for the disciplined comforts of faith; the other desperate to transcend her oppressive religious upbringing for sexual and spiritual freedom cross paths unexpectedly in Jerusalem, to startling consequences. | 112 | Avi Nesher | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | My Hero Brother | A group of remarkable young people with Down syndrome embark on a demanding trek through the Indian Himalayas, accompanied by their siblings. Unresolved conflicts and the complexities of growing up with a Down syndrome sibling come to surface, as they deal with formidable physical and emotional challenges. | 78 | Yonatan Nir | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | Leaving Paradise | Cleo had always wanted to leave the big city in Brazil where he lives and move to a large farm with his family. After years of saving and planning, he is finally able to pursue his dream and relocate with his wife and 15 children to communal living in Brazil's great outdoors. In establishing their family farm, the Barolo family grows closer than ever. They form a deep and powerful bond while working, cooking, studying, and playing music together. Everything appears to be working according to plan until Cleo's daughter makes a startling discovery about their heritage - they are among the 30,000 Brazilians who are descendants of Sephardic Jews. In researching the Baralo family tree further, she discovers her family's Jewish heritage, the news of which sets her and her siblings' imaginations aflame with a burning desire to immigrate to Israel and convert to Judaism. | 86 | Ofer Freiman | Israel, Brazil | Portuguese, Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | A Tree of Life | In Pittsburgh in 2018, a white supremacist opened fire at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history. The survivors recount the harrowing experience and they detail how their lives have fundamentally changed. Academy Award-nominated, Emmy-winning director Trish Adlesic confronts the moral decay of humanity and takes a larger look at the hate-based crisis stemming from the political climate to pose the ultimate question: what kind of nation does America want to be? | 79 | Trish Adlesic | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | 200 Meters | Mustafa and his wife Salwa live 200 meters apart in villages separated by the wall. One day he gets a call every parent dreads: his son has had an accident. Rushing to cross the Israeli checkpoint, Mustafa is denied on a technicality. But a father's love won't give up and he will do anything to reach his son. A 200 meter distance becomes a 200 kilometer odyssey, as Mustafa, left with no choice, attempts to smuggle himself to the other side of the wall. | 96 | Ameen Nayfeh | Italy, Jordan, Palestinian Territories, Qatar, Sweden | Arabic, English, Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | Concerned Citizen | (aGLIFF) Ben and Raz relish their new flat, part of the new population quickly gentrifying the once-migrant-filled neighborhood. However, a conflict with a 'local' over a newly planted tree in the city brings deep-seated prejudices to light. | 82 | Idan Haguel | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF Connect |
| 2022 | Rose | Franoise Fabian, Gregory Montel, and Aure Atika star in this warm-hearted Parisian Jewish family drama. When patriarch Philippe dies, his wife Rose feels that her life is over. A chance dinner party however, re-ignites her joie-de-vivre much to the discomfort of her three loving but somewhat disfunctional children. Unsure how to deal with this new vivacious version of their mother, Rose's children's concerns can't stop her celebrating life again. Honest, beautifully observed and laced with a treasure trove of Yiddish and Mizrahi songs, this is a life-affirming and accomplished debut feature from director Aurelie Saada. | 102 | Aurelie Saada | France | French | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | One More Story | Yarden Gat, a young, brilliant journalist for a famous newspaper, does not believe in love. When she eventually decides to go on a date, she reveals all her cards to the person she meets (Guri Alfi). She tells him that she slept with her boss (Lior Ashkenazi) and ruined her friend's chance of having true love when she made him go out on a date each day of the month with a different woman, only to get a humiliating scoop for the newspaper. Maybe not the best story for a first date. Will any of them eventually find true love? All the answers can be found in Guri Alfi's new romantic comedy. | 91 | Guri Alfi | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | Our (Almost Completely True) Story | Life in Hollywood has lost its luster for timeless actress, Mariette Hartley. Although her reputation precedes her from the peak of her acting career decades prior, meaningful work, and a decent date are hard to find. When Mariette meets Jerry Sroka, a forever-comic who's also been wading through L.A.'s insufferable dating scene, Jerry immediately falls for her stunning elegance and exceptionally dry humor. As things get more serious and unexpected challenges arise, Mariette wonders if it may be too late for love. Explore the hilarious, vulnerable realities for aging actors and the search for love as seniors in Hollywood. | 92 | Don Scardino | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | The Levys of Monticello | When Thomas Jefferson died in 1826, he left behind a mountain of personal debt, which forced his heirs to sell his beloved Monticello home and all of its possessions. The Levys of Monticello is a documentary film that tells the little-known story of the Levy family, which owned and carefully preserved Monticello for nearly a century - far longer than Jefferson or his descendants. The remarkable story of the Levy family also intersects with the rise of antisemitism that runs throughout the course of American history. A new film from Steven Pressman (50 Children). | 72 | Steven Pressman | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | Haute Couture | Esther is at the end of her career as Head Seamstress at Dior Avenue Montaigne workshop. One day, she gets her handbag stolen in the metro by a 20 year old girl, Jade. Instead of calling the police she decides to take care of Jade. She sees in her the opportunity to pass on her skills, the craft of dressmaking, her only wealth. In the frenetic world of Haute Couture, Esther will give Jade la beautÂŽ du geste, a way to reach beyond herself. | 101 | Sylvie Ohayon | France | French | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | Berenshtein | The last surviving member of the great Ukranian partisans who located Hitler's secret weapon, the V2 missile development facility, revisits his past as a soldier in World War II. By diving into his traumatic memories, he is forced to grapple with the dissociation and loss of identity that ensued after the war. Despite this adversity, it becomes clear that he is able to stay true to his values through it all. Based on the true story of Leonid Berenshtein. | 110 | Roman Shumunov | Israel | Russian, German, Polish, Ukrainian | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | The Crossing | THE CROSSING tells the story of the adventurous 10-year-old Gerda and her brother Otto, whose parents are in the Norwegian resistance movement during the Second World War. One day, just before Christmas in 1942, Gerda and Otto's parents are arrested, leaving the siblings on their own. Following the arrest, they discover two Jewish children, Sarah and Daniel, hidden in a secret cupboard in their basement at home. It is now up to Gerda and Otto to finish what their parents started: to help Sarah and Daniel flee from the Nazis, cross the border to neutral Sweden, and reunite them with their parents. "THE CROSSING" is a film about the confidence, uncompromising loyalty, and great courage you can find in even the youngest of children. | 95 | Johanne Helgeland | Norway | Norwegian, English subtitles | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | In the Name of the Daughter | A touching and fascinating thriller/drama which unfolds the horrifying story of Dror Bar-El, a father who has lost his daughter in a terrorist attack and embarks on an uncompromising quest in order to prevent the expected release of her murderer from prison. This quest will confront him with his most profound values and beliefs, while threatening to cross the fine line between serving justice and blind revenge. | 39 | Liran Shitrit | Israel | English | AJFF365 |
| 2022 | Image of Victory | During the 2014 war in Gaza, Uri, an Israeli soldier, is shot and wounded. In the hospital, he finds himself unwillingly turned into a war hero. This private family hardship turned public event offers an insider's look into Israeli society and how war, both a reality and a state of mind, is shaping it as a nation. | 29 | Adi Mishnayot | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2022 | What If? | Can a leader succeed in influencing the world? Or is he a human being like anyone else, only a grain of sand tossed to the waves of history with no ability to affect it? Tolstoy pondered this question in War and Peace. 78-year-old Ehud Barak is the controversial former prime minister, decorated and criticized commander on the battlefield, and one of the leading figures of the Zionist movement. He is also the initiator of Israel's assassination plan of Yasser Arafat. In this remarkable film, Barak observes with disillusioned clarity his own history and the history of the State Israel. Twenty years after the failure of the 2000 Camp David summit, Barak looks back on his life and analyzes the Israeli reality with a critical eye. Respected craft-master filmmaker RAL TAL (THE MUSEUM, THE GARDEN OF EDEN, CHILDREN OF THE SUN), known for his narrative fiction style in his formalist approach to documentary cinema, delivers an outstanding philosophical essay, and proposes a deep cinematic reflection on history and decision-making, while trying to figure it all out. | 85 | Ran Tal | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2023 | 1341 Frames of Love and War | The most horrible things are sometimes aesthetic,' says Israel's most celebrated war photographer Micha Bar-Am. For a year and a half, the acclaimed photo-journalist Micha Bar-Am allowed director Ran Tal to enter his vast archive of negatives. Composed entirely of images that Bar-Am took over more than fifty years, 1341 FRAMES OF LOVE AND WAR reveals the enormous price that comes along with documenting atrocities and wars. 1341 FRAMES provides an intimate portrait of an artist and a meditation on memory, violence and identity. Beyond this narrative tribute, the film offers a unique cinematic, visual, and sensory experience that explores how to imbue still photography with movement on the one hand, while freezing cinematic movement to distill meaning and emotion on the other. It is a complex love letter to the power, beauty and horror of photographic imagery. | 90 | Ran Tal | Israel, UK, US | Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2023 | 999: The Forgotten Girls of the Holocaust | 999 unmarried, young Jewish women were registered for government service in a supposed shoe factory and ended up in Auschwitz. Their government had paid the Nazis to take them and work them to death. Who were these young women? Why were they chosen? How did a handful survive over three years in the death camps? | 98 | Heather Dune Macadam | USA | English, German, Hebrew, Slovak | Festival |
| 2023 | A Journey with my Dad | For the first time, Tamar, 5 years old, accompanies her dad to a hotel where vacationers look a bit strange. Thus begins a journey tinged with surrealism, as soon through the eyes of the child. Tamar will eventually discover the hidden story of her father. | 11 | Mor Israeli | Israel,France | None | Festival |
| 2023 | In the fall of 2019, Filmmaker David Deri-Barkai began documenting four families, parents and their children , his secular gay family in Tel Aviv, a Jewish Ultra-Orthodox family in Beit Shemesh, a Muslim family in Taibeh and a Jewish Religious family in the Ofra settlement (West Bank). The pandemic that broke out a few months later, along with the lock-downs, fears and social unrest that followed, created unprecedented family and national pressure. While for some, their belief is a source of strength, others confront doubts, and rifts are deepening, but a fascinating dialogue and surprising alliances are created. | 100 | David Deri | Israel | Hebrew, Arabic | Festival | |
| 2023 | Barren | Married for four years, Faigi (Mili Eshet), a young Haredi married woman, has still not gotten pregnant. She wishes her husband, Naftali (Yoav Rotman) would agree to fertility treatment, but he prefers to believe their desire for a child will be answered through prayer. After enduring, against her will, a shocking and humiliating 'treatment' for infertility, she finds herself shunned by Naftali, mistrusted by her in-laws, and questioning her role in the only culture she has ever known. Beautifully photographed and acted, this haunting film offers a deep and multifaceted look into an an insular community that reveals little to the outside world. | 108 | Mordechai Vardi | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2023 | Close | Due to the covid restrictions, Avram, the Gabay (supervisor) of the synagogue is forced to close the shul. His son pressures him to move to a nursing home. Late at night Avram decides to go to the synagogue, his last place of solace. | 15 | Erez Hadad | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2023 | Cut | A short drama that explores antisemitism, queerness, and spirituality. Daniel, a teenage boy caught in a web of lies, is pulled in different directions by his best mate and burgeoning Neo-Nazi, James; his secret lover, Isaac; and his orthodox Jewish father, Adam. As his ability to juggle his identities falters, he finds himself haunted by a Hasidic spectre demanding a sacrifice. | 19 | Samuel Lucas Allen | Australia | English | Festival |
| 2023 | Helsinki Yiddish Cabaret | Between 1920 and 1960, Finnish playwright and cabaret artist Jac Weinstein captured the life of the Helsinki Jewish community through his plays. Today, a group of Helsinki-based Jewish musicians is determined to bring his clever and fun lyrics to life. | 10 | Simon Glass | UK, Finland | English, Yiddish, Finnish | Festival |
| 2023 | In the Next Year: Becoming Jewish in Pakistan | The Bene Ephraim are a self-identifying Jewish community in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The Judaization of this formerly Christian community emerges from the converging plateaus of Judeophobia and Judeophilia in Pakistan, the transnational outreach of messianic Zionism in Israel, and the agentive capacity of this community's media practices. | 10 | Juergen Schaflechner | Pakistan, Austria | English, Urdu | Festival |
| 2023 | Irena's Vow | Warsaw, 1939: when the Nazis invade Poland, nurse Irena Gut (Sophie Nelisse) is displaced and forced to work in support of the German war effort, eventually assigned to run the home of a Nazi commandant (Dougray Scott). Instead of following the path of least resistance and gambling on her status and ethnicity to keep her safe, Gut risks everything to save a dozen Jewish refugees from persecution and murder, sheltering them under her boss's nose. | 120 | Louise Archambault | Canada, Poland | English | Festival |
| 2023 | Irit Bardugo's Bar Mitzvah | Single mom Irit Bardugo's is planning a spectacular bar mitzvah celebration for her only child. Even when everything goes wrong, Irit is not going to give up without a fight. | 14 | Aviya Kalifa Shaked | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2023 | Judas | Based on the best-selling novel by Amos Oz, which tells the story of Shmuel Ash who takes a job as companion to the elderly Gershom Wald. The two grapple about Jesus's humanity and the betrayal of Judas Iscariot, the subject of Shmuel's thesis. Things get complicated when Shmuel falls in love with Wald's widow daughter-in-law, Atalia. A tangle of relationships that also touches on the issues of the roots of anti-Semitism, the origins of the Jewish-Arab conflict, and the complex reality in Israel. | 84 | Dan Wolman | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2023 | Less Than Kosher | At 20, Viv was a promising young singer. At 30, her failing music career has forced her back into her mother's basement. But when this self proclaimed Bad Jew lands ass-backwards into a job as a Cantor at her family's synagogue, she's thrown into a wild ride of illicit affairs, drug trips, tense family drama, self discovery and some serious Jewish bops. | 66 | Daniel Am Rosenberg | Canada | English | Festival |
| 2023 | Love Has Nothing To Do With It | Rina can't look at her son Dean, who's under house arrest at her home. Dean's trial starts tomorrow. As Rina doubts her ability to stand by his side, today, she will have to look into his eyes and hear the truth. | 16 | Yotam Knispel | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2023 | Modern Love | Three years after he stopped using Facebook, Chaim gives the social network a second chance. When he becomes much more popular than he ever expected, he must choose between his social network persona and his true character. | 12 | Itamar Gross | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2023 | My Daughter My Love | Shimon, a 70-year-old widower, travels to Paris to visit a childhood friend. He stays with his daughter and discovers that her marriage is falling apart. He decides to help. In the process, he finds out that he and his daughter share both dreams and desires of which they had been previously unaware. | 97 | Eitan Green | Israel | French, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2023 | My Father's Secrets | In the 60s, in Belgium, Michel and his brother Charly lived a happy childhood in their Jewish family. Their father, silent and discreet, did not reveal his past. The two brothers imagine him as a great adventurer, pirate,or treasure hunter....but what is he hiding? | 74 | Vera Belmont | France, Belgium | English | Festival |
| 2023 | No Name Restaurant | 2 men, 3 religions, one camel and a mission: An unorthodox comedy. Alexandria, Egypt. To save the once largest Jewish community in the world from being shut down, Ben, an ultra orthodox Brooklyn Jew, is sent out to be the desperately needed tenth man for the ceremonies of Pesach. Having missed his plane and been kicked out of the bus in the Sinai desert, his last hope is Adel, a grumpy Bedouin looking for his camel. When their car breaks down, it becomes a matter of their very survival. | 121 | Stefan Sarazin, Peter Keller | Germany | English, Arabic, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2023 | Nool | Based on a true event, Nool is a young Macaque new to life in an Israeli zoo at the height of a military conflict. One night, mesmerized by the orange glow of rockets painting the night sky, the curious monkey slips out of her cage for a better view, oblivious that the lights are dangerous war missiles. On the high branches of a tree she spots one flying towards her and in one fateful moment her life changes forever. | 8 | May Grosman | Israel | None | Festival |
| 2023 | Only In Theaters | Over four generations, the Laemmles, a close-knit Jewish family, have dedicated themselves to supporting, innovating, and elevating the art of filmmaking. Responsible for bringing foreign and film to the Los Angeles area for 75 years, popularizing independent films, documentary films, and their makers, the Laemmle Theatres' impact on Hollywood and world cinema cannot be overstated. | 93 | Raphael Sbarge | USA | English | Festival |
| 2023 | Pisces | An Israeli woman, after having been in exile in Japan for years, is caught up by her past. She will literally "swim" through her memories to reconnect with her family. The film connects two worlds (Israel and Japan) through an original graphic style. | 12 | Lee Dror | Israel | Hebrew, Japanese | Festival |
| 2023 | Queer and Frum | The story of two former Orthodox Jews, Chaim Levin and Lieb Swartz-Brownstein, on their unique journeys to becoming openly queer. Shot in Orthodox neighborhoods of New York City, the film takes a deep look into Hasidic life and the experience of living with intersecting identities in a religious world. | 32 | Miki Katoni | USA | English | Festival |
| 2023 | Remembering Gene Wilder | Ron Frank's affectionate and touching biographical documentary shows us the full measure of Wilder's gifts is on display, not only as a comedic actor but as a writer, director and a mensch. Told in part through Wilder's own voice, Remembering Gene Wilder is a treat to watch with its generous helpings of film clips from across Wilder's career. Yes there are the ever-fresh line readings ('Put the candle back!') and his manic physical antics, but there are also uproarious outtakes from the set of Young Frankenstein and poignant home movies from his marriage to Gilda Radner. Get ready to binge-watch Wilder's whole filmography, you'll want to after seeing this tender and eye-opening tribute. | 90 | Ron Frank | USA | English | Festival |
| 2023 | Seeds of Memory | This documentary short focuses on the Akrich Jewish cemetery and interfaith fruit tree nursery, its faithful guardian, and the neighboring Achbarou Women's Cooperative in new and beautiful ways, portraying these integrated projects as a model for a sustainable interfaith Morocco. | 9 | Filippo Belliti | Morocco | English, Arabic, Darja | Festival |
| 2023 | SHTTL | A filmmaker returns from Kyiv to his rural village to marry the love of his life. He is expected to marry the Rabbi's daughter, which disrupts the balance of the whole town. In one unflinching shot, this film presents a day in the life of a Jewish village before it disappears. SHTTL is the story of the inhabitants of a Yiddish Ukrainian village at the border of Poland, 24 hours before the Nazi invasion, known as Operation Barbarossa. Today, there are no such villages in existence; the production fully reconstructed a traditional Shtetl outside of Kyiv, which is planned to be turned into a museum. | 109 | Ady Walter | Ukraine | Yiddish | Festival |
| 2023 | Songs of the Sephardim in Izmir | In Izmir, an ancient Turkish city rich with religious history and culture, Ceni is working to preserve Ladino, the endangered language of Sephardic Jews. Ceni's family migrated to Turkey centuries ago, following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Like many others in her generation, Ceni grew up with parents and grandparents who spoke Ladino at home, but the language wasn't passed down. Through music and song, Ceni finds a deep connection with her Sephardic heritage and hopes to save Ladino for future generations. | 15 | Brooke Saias Anna Clare Spelman | USA, Turkiye | Ladino, Turkish, English | Festival |
| 2023 | The Boy | Festival | |||||
| 2023 | The Camera of Doctor Morris | For decades, Dr. Morris filmed his family. Their lives were captured on 8mm, years of births and deaths, joys and tragedies, dramas and quiet days spent in the sun, all unfolding in the heat of the Israeli desert. Long after his death, the footage is rediscovered. Through the archives of fully lived and filmed lives, combined with recounting from Morris family members themselves, their unusual and absorbing story unfolds. | 74 | Itamar Alcalay, Meital Zvieli | Israel | Hebrew, English | Festival |
| 2023 | The Miniaturist of Junagadh | 1947. The ravages of Partition have compelled an old artist, Husyn Naqqash, to sell his ancestral home in Western India and move with his family to Karachi, Pakistan. When Kishorilal, a stoic and stone-hearted man who has bought the house, comes to know that Husyn is a well-known miniature painter and has an invaluable and rare miniature collection, he schemes to get hold of the collection. But all is not what it seems and there is a secret about the collection that Husyn's family is holding back. Not only from Kishorilal, but also from Husyn. | 29 | Kaushal Oza | India | Hindi, Urdu | Festival |
| 2023 | The Mohel | A mohel (Jewish ritual circumciser) comes to a party in honor of the birth of his first grandson. He is desperate to circumcise the child despite his son's refusal to do so. The Mohel's efforts to convince his son reach a peak and threaten to destroy the relationship between father and son. | 8 | Pnina Geffen & Yochay Rosenberg | Israel | Hebrew, Russian | Festival |
| 2023 | The Story of Annette Zelman | Romeo and Juliet in 1942. She was Jewish. He was Catholic. Annette and Jean wanted to get married, but Jean's parents were opposed. Annette Zelman was reported to the Gestapo by her fiance's father with devastating consequences. Based on a true story, which is the subject of authors Heather Dune Macadam and Simon Worrall's new non-fiction book 'Star Crossed: A True WWII Romeo and Juliet Love Story in Hitlers Paris.' | 93 | Philippe Le Guay | France | French | Festival |
| 2023 | The Walk | A Jewish man finds himself living in Germany to be with his only daughter. Everyday he walks his dog through a town that has a dark history of anti-Semitism and Nazi activity. Once he learns about the history, he can't unsee it. But he can't leave, so he must find a way to reconclie the past in order to move forward. | 12 | Jonny Stern | Germany | English | Festival |
| 2023 | Vishniac | Director Laura Bialis and producers Nancy Spielberg and Roberta Grossman take us on a journey through the various chapters in the life of photographer Roman Vishniac. He was difficult, flamboyant, and brilliant. Photographer and scientist Roman Vishniac captured iconic images of Jewish life , from the cafes of pre-war Berlin to the shtetls of Eastern Europe -- all before fleeing Nazi Germany to reinvent himself in America. His daughter Mara reconstructs his dramatic life, complicated relationships, and breathtaking legacy. | 93 | Laura Bialis | USA | English, German | Festival |
| 2023 | When Larry Met Larry | The heartwarming and poignant story of when and how CNN's Larry King met his first born son, Larry King Jr. Oddly, it wasn't until Jr. was in his 30s and King was in his early 60s. The two were brought together by King's life-long friend and best-selling author Herb Cohen. Shortly after King's death, Herb visits Larry King Jr., and the two discuss how Jr. navigated the complex relationship with his celebrity father. | 13 | Lisa Melmed | USA | English | Festival |
| 2023 | Yiddish Mean Girls | The iconic four-way phone call scene from the 2004 Lindsay Lohan movie translated completely into the Ashkenazi Jewish language of Yiddish. The film parody takes the Plastics out of their suburban Chicago setting and reimagines them as Jewish teenagers living in NYC's Upper East Side in a world where the popular girls speak Yiddish. | 3 | Dylan Seders Hoffman | USA | Yiddish | Festival |
| 2023 | Brown White | From the perspective of Israeli biracial kids, BrownWhite explores how skin color influences the development of identity. Weaving their lived experiences with findings from academic research, the film reveals these kids' dilemmas around identity in a world that's more complicated than brown or white. | 10 | Ruchama Ehrenhalt | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Cinema Sabaya | A group of Arab and Jewish women attend a video workshop at a small town community center run by Rona (Dana Ivgy, Zero Motivation), a young filmmaker from Tel Aviv, who teaches them to document their lives. As each student shares footage from her home life with the others, their beliefs and preconceptions are challenged and barriers are broken down. The group comes together as mothers, daughters, wives, and women living in a world designed to keep them apart, forming an empowering and lasting bond as they learn more about each other and themselves. Inspired by writer-director Orit Fouks Rotem's own experiences as a teacher, Cinema Sabaya presents a deft and heartfelt portrait of art's capacity to unite disparate communities, moving effortlessly between the gravity of their conversations and the genuine joy of this unlikely group of friends. Israel's Official Submission to the 95th Academy Awards and winner of five Ophir Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress (Joanna Said). | 92 | Orit Fouks Rotem | Israel | Hebrew, Arabic | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Closed Circuit | Two men sit at a popular cafe in Tel Aviv. Moments later, they open fire on the shocked diners around them. One customer fights back. Others run to safety. No one escapes unharmed. Closed Circuit documents the infamous terrorist attack at Sarona Market with raw footage from security cameras and riveting interviews with survivors: a father breaking the Ramadan fast with his family, a cop who unknowingly saves one of the fleeing terrorists, a girl who escapes but loses her dad, and restaurant workers, both Arab and Jewish, whose lives are forever changed by their sudden encounter with death. | 54 | Tal Inbar | Israel | Hebrew, Arabic | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Exodus 91 | A hybrid docudrama film that follows Israeli diplomat, Asher Naim, on a seemingly insurmountable mission to bring 15,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. As Asher learns more about these African Jews, he finds himself between worlds and facing a crisis of faith in himself and his country. The docudrama follows the behind-the-scenes politics leading up to Operation Solomon , the two day airlift in May 1991 pulled off in climactic chaos of the Ethiopian Civil War. (Plays with the 11 minute short BrownWhite.) | 90 | Micah Smith | Israel | Hebrew, Amharic, English | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Elik and Jimmy | Jimmy and Elik meet while serving in the army. He's an overweight corporal and she's a beautiful officer but something works between them. They meet again over the years. He wants her but she rejects him. Only in their 30's, after a few of life's lessons, they start being friends. Until love gets in the way. | 81 | Gudis Schneider | Israel | Hebrew, English | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Holy Wine | Filmmaker Snow R. Shai interviews the creme de la creme of Israel's winemakers, and the Israeli wine industry is revealed in all its glory with something to be learned by even the most ardent oenophile. From the ancient wine presses carved in stone to the vineyard-studded landscapes that grace much of Israel, the images in this film are a feast for the eyes. If you donâ't think of Israel as a serious wine region, you will after watching this. The second part of the film covers the dilemmas of kosher wine production in Israel: Is it good for the Jews? Does it help the wineries in exporting wine abroad or harm their ability to break into non-kosher markets? Does the production of kosher wine harm the quality of the wine? Like Israel as a whole, this film reveals that even wine can be a complex topic. | 96 | Snow R. Shai | Israel | English, Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Hummus Full Trailer | Three very different shipping containers are mistakenly mixed up resulting in a scramble to find the correct trailer. Johnny Saloniki, the innocent son of a mafiosa, is pulled into the family business to find the missing trailers before time runs out. HUMMUS FULL TRAILER is a colorful and hilarious look at how a couple of Arabs, Gay florists and orthodox Jews discover each other's secrets all while trying to keep a wedding on track, hitmen away, and flowers alive. | 93 | Asaf Kobrovsky | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Anne | Two actresses wait to audition for the role of a lifetime. That role? Anne Frank. What could go wrong? Shown as part of Indie Meme Shorts Showcase | 10 | Desiree Abeyta | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Jew Suss 2.0 | Anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide, and even more driven by the Corona crisis. Jew Suss 2.0 documents the visual roots of this new anti-Semitism, taking a historical look back at the visual propaganda of National Socialism. | 77 | Felix Moeller | Germany | German | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | The Replacement (El Sustituto) | 1982. A young police officer hardened in the worst neighbourhoods of Madrid accepts a post in a small village by the sea in the hope of healing his sick daughter and gaining some inner peace. But once there he becomes involved in the investigation of the strange murder of the inspector he replaced. The inquiry will lead him to a group of Nazi elders who live a heavenly and happy retreat on the coast. | 117 | Oscar Aibar | Spain | Spanish | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | The Man in the Basement | Simon and Helen live in Paris together, they decide to sell a basement in their building. The man who buys it has a troubled past and the couple's life is turning upside down | 114 | Philippe Le Guay | France | French | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | We Left the Camp Singing | An educational documentary involving music and exclusive interviews with Holocaust survivors, the project has the goal to share memories of musical activities in the Theresienstadt ghetto-camp, a unique camp located in Czechoslovakia, where the presence of talented artists, musicians, and composers encouraged cultural life to flourish despite the desperate living conditions of the inmates. The documentary follows Sofia's intense journey studying the music of composers who were imprisoned in Theresienstadt such as Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, and the more recently re-discovered Hans Winterberg, while she is also committed to meet some of the last survivors. The interviews reveal an inspirational story of intergenerational meeting that keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. | 34 | Sofia Tapinassi, James Joel Dann | Italy | English, Czech | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Where Life Begins | An ultra-orthodox Jewish family from Aix-les-Bains, France comes to a farm in Calabria, Italy for a brief stay every year to carry out a sacred mission: harvesting citrons. Here Elio, the farm owner, meets Esther, the rabbi's daughter, who is tired of the constraints imposed by her religion. Through this relationship, Esther will understand the importance of freedom and find her path, and, in the same way, Elio will find the peace he had lost for a long time. | 100 | Stephane Freiss | Italy | Italian, French | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Tracks: Stumbling Stones Amsterdam | The heartfelt and beautifully shot short form documentary "Tracks: Stumbling Stones Amsterdam" explores the laying of "Stolpersteine" memorial stones honoring Holocaust victims, installed in front of the homes along the central canals in Amsterdam. A central theme of this film is the power and importance of remembrance. In the Jewish tradition, as long as a person is remembered they continue to live. The central canal area of Amsterdam is recognized as one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the world. Even in times of joy and celebration we are urged to momentarily acknowledge tragedy in both the past and the present. These stones serve to provide a small tear of sorrow next to the grand and historic architecture of the canals. This film encourages us to recall the neighbors, friends, grandparents, mothers, fathers, children and babies who were the victims of hate and intolerance. The film is a visually gorgeous, poetic and uplifting meditation on art, encounter and remembrance. | 11 | Maclovia Martel | Netherlands | English, Dutch | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Dolphin Boy | Morad, a teenager living in an Arab neighboorhood in Israel, had everything a teenager could want; he was socially popular, loved by his family, an athlete, and a good student. But after a cruel beating by his classmates, he becomes catatonic and withdraws from life. Instead of interring him in a mental institution, his doctor suggests dolphin-assisted therapy down in Eilat. Desperate to help his son, Morad's father sells everything, leaves his job and family, moves to Dolphin Reef on the Red Sea, and vows not to return until the boy fully recovers. But even when Morad begins to speak again, he's changed beyond what anyone could've expected. A moving film about nature's power to heal. | 72 | Dani Menkin, Yonatan Nir | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Converts: The Journey of Becoming Jewish | Follow several non-Jews from around the world as they go through the conversion process. Diana from Costa Rica found out about her Spanish-Portuguese Jewish roots from a high school genealogy project. Adam from Toronto was raised as a Pentecostal Christian but started questioning his beliefs as a teenager. Bianka from Warsaw wanted community and an intellectual approach to spirituality. All of our characters are on a journey of self-discovery and negotiating their relationships with family, friends and significant others. All are searching for identity and connection. Through following their conversion process, we are vicariously exposed to a range of Jewish ideas and practices. Along the way we get a chance to meet their teachers and guides and the community that they seek to join. | 70 | Oren Rosenfeld, Rebecca Shore | Canada, Israel, Poland, Spain | English, Spanish, Polish, Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Golda | Directed by Academy Award® winner Guy Nattiv, Golda is a ticking-clock thriller set during the tense 19 days of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (Academy Award® winner Helen Mirren), faced with the potential of Israel's complete destruction, must navigate overwhelming odds, a skeptical cabinet, and a complex relationship with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Liev Schreiber), with millions of lives in the balance. Her tough leadership and compassion would ultimately decide the fate of her nation and leave her with a controversial legacy around the world. | 100 | Guy Nattiv | USA, UK | English | Sneak Peek |
| 2023 | Gefilte Fish | On its surface, Gefilte Fish is a story of one family meal in the Bronx. That brief moment in time connects past, present, and future, revealing trauma from the Holocaust, incest, and loss of parents -- and the silence that perpetuates the pain. Presented as part of the Arts in Motion program. | 7 | Yuliya Lanina | USA/Austria | English | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Kinneret | In the most magical place in the land of Genesis, a story about a jungle cat kitten who lost her mother and was left alone in the stormy jungle of life on the Sea of Galilee. An exciting cinematic drama, about the wildlife around the Sea of Galilee as never seen before. Twenty years of photography in an exciting and breathtaking cinematic experience! | 93 | Moshe Alpert | israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | No Name Restaurant | 2 men, 3 religions, one camel and a mission: An unorthodox comedy. Alexandria, Egypt. To save the once largest Jewish community in the world from being shut down, Ben, an ultra orthodox Brooklyn Jew, is sent out to be the desperately needed tenth man for the ceremonies of Pesach. Having missed his plane and been kicked out of the bus in the Sinai desert, his last hope is Adel, a grumpy Bedouin looking for his camel. When their car breaks down, it becomes a matter of their very survival. | 121 | Stefan Sarazin, Peter Keller | Germany | English, Arabic, Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2023 | Silent | Avihu, a controversial TV host, is back from suspension in the height of the prime minster election campaign. The leading candidate is his former beloved pupil and the son of the former prime minster, who is keeping silent. He isn't the only one who is silent, Avihu's mother miraculously stopped talking. Caught in the whirlwind of their silence Avihu is on a path to his own reckoning. Includes AJFF interview with Esti Zakheim. | 129 | Shemi Zarhin | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2024 | Late Marriage | Zaza (Lior Ashkenazi in his breakthrough role) is a 31-year old Israeli bachelor, handsome and intelligent, and his family wants to see him married. But tradition dictates that Zaza has to choose a young virgin. She must be beautiful and from a good family, preferably rich. Zaza's parents, Yasha and Lily, drag Zaza to meet potential brides and their families. Zaza has no choice. He plays along with his family, advocates of the suffocating traditions of their Georgian Jewish heritage. But Zaza always manages to somehow get out of being engaged. What his parents don't know is that Zaza is already in love. Judith is sensuous, strong and intriguing. She's also a divorcee with a 6-year-old daughter. So Zaza has kept Judith a secret from his family. He will have to choose between respect for the strict confines of family and tradition, or the love of his life. Israel's submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 74th Academy Awards. | 102 | Dover Kosashvili | Israel | Hebrew, Judaeo-Georgian | AJFF365 |
| 2024 | Restoration | 70 year old Yaakov Fidelman (Sasson Gabai, "The Band's Visit") hangs on with all his might to the antique restoration workshop which has been his life's work. After his long-time business partner passes away, Fidelman rejects his son Noah's idea to close the business and build an apartment complex on the site. He believes that with the help of his new apprentice Anton, he'll find a way to save his workshop, his world, and his solitary way of life. When Anton falls in love with Hava, Noah's pregnant wife, the two young men compete not only over a father, but also over a woman and the baby she carries. Will the old man understand that his only hope for redemption is to learn to let go and admit and accept his weaknesses and the dictate of time? | 105 | Joseph Madmoney | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2024 | Turn Left at the End of the World | A group of families emigrate from India to Israel in the late sixties, seeking a better life in what they believe to be the first outpost of the West in Asia. To their surprise, they are sent to a new settlement in the middle of the desert, populated mostly by Moroccan Jews. The two cultures clash as the group tries to integrate into the community, and are faced by harsh realities. But despite the conflicts and prejudices, a strong friendship develops between two girls from opposite sides of the struggle. The film finds a perfect combination between humor and sentiment in a very real and very difficult situation. | 110 | Avi Nesher | Israel | Hebrew, French, English, Hindi, Judeo-Moroccan, Arabic | AJFF365 |
| 2024 | Zero Motivation | A smash hit in Israel and winner of the Best Narrative Feature Award at the Tribeca Film Festival, Zero Motivation is a unique, sharply observed, sometimes dark and often hilarious portrait of everyday life for a unit of young, female soldiers in a remote Israeli desert outpost. Playing out like M*A*S*H meets Orange is the New Black, Talya Lavie's brilliant debut details the power struggles of three women with different agendas and very little to do. Pencil-pushers in the Human Resources Office, best friends Zohar (Dana Ivgy) and Daffi (Nelly Tagar) spend their time playing video games, singing pop songs, jousting with stationery and dreaming of Tel Aviv. The indolent twosome are watched over by their aspiring senior officer, Rama (Shani Klein), who dreams of a higher position and a significant military career, but with a platoon of unskilled, idle, female soldiers without any drive under her charge, her ambitions for promotion are constantly thwarted. | 100 | Talya Lavie | Israel | Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2024 | A Tale of Four Minorities | In the fall of 2019, Filmmaker David Deri-Barkai began documenting four families, parents and their children , his secular gay family in Tel Aviv, a Jewish Ultra-Orthodox family in Beit Shemesh, a Muslim family in Taibeh and a Jewish Religious family in the Ofra settlement (West Bank). The pandemic that broke out a few months later, along with the lock-downs, fears and social unrest that followed, created unprecedented family and national pressure. While for some, their belief is a source of strength, others confront doubts, and rifts are deepening, but a fascinating dialogue and surprising alliances are created. | 100 | David Deri | Israel | Hebrew, Arabic | AJFF365 |
| 2024 | The Devils Confession | In previously unheard bombshell audiotapes, the architect of Hitler's Final Solution boasts about his role and motives during the Holocaust. Six decades after his trial and execution in Israel, these long-hidden recordings surface of Adolf Eichmann talking with a Dutch Nazi journalist in 1957 Argentina. Before facing justice, the candid admissions expose Eichmann's visceral antisemitism and zeal for mass murder, contradicting his later claims that he was merely a functionary following orders. Investigative filmmaker Yariv Mozer, who tracked down the original recordings, posits why the evidence was concealed during trial. Staged reenactments of Eichmann's own chilling words, as well as colorized courtroom footage, offer a dramatic rebuttal to notions of the banality of evil. | 115 | Yariv Mozer | Israel | English, German, Hebrew | AJFF365 |
| 2024 | The Shadow of the Day | Italy, after the promulgation of the racial laws (1938). Luciano, a Fascist-abiding restaurateur, nonetheless believes he can still live by his own rules inside his business. However, everything changes when Anna, a girl with a dangerous secret, starts to work at his restaurant. | 125 | Giuseppe Piccioni | Italy | Italian | AJFF365 |
| 2024 | The Goldman Case | In 1976, the second trial of Pierre Goldman, a far-left activist suspected of killing two pharmacists during a robbery gone wrong, was held. The case mobilized many media figures. Based on true events. | 116 | Cedric Kahn | France | French | AJFF365 |
| 2024 | Home | A young and recently married Orthodox man''s dream to open a computer store in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem turns into a violent nightmare when the entire neighborhood sees him as an existential threat. | 111 | Benny Fredman | Israel | Hebrew, Yiddish | AJFF365 |
| 2024 | Israel Swings for Gold | In 2021, IsraelÕs baseball team competed in the Olympics for the first time. They learn quickly that representing Israel on the world stage is not just fun and games. | 77 | Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, Jeremy Newberger | USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2024 | Shattered | A terrorist attack on a Jewish community centre in Argentina not only has tragic consequences for those affected, but also brings to light a family secret that had been swept under the carpet for 22 years. In her latest thriller, ultra-orthodox director Dina Perlstein skilfully combines secret service investigations with personal research, politics with family drama, and high tension with melodrama. | 169 | Dina Perlstein | Israel, Argentina | English, Hebrew, Spanish | AJFF365 |
| 2024 | The Green Perfume | Amid a performance a comedian from the ComŽdie Franaise is murdered by poisoning right in front of a dumbfounded audience. | 102 | Nicolas Pariser | France | French | AJFF365 |
| 2024 | Tragic Awakening | In the wake of the October 7 pogrom in Israel, people of goodwill the world over have been forced to confront a chilling question: Why are the Jews so often the target of intense, genocidal hatred? This powerful documentary explores the roots of antisemitism through the unique insights of Arab Zionist, Rawan Osman. Tragic Awakening delves into the historical and cultural genesis of Jew-hatred, revealing its impact not only on the Jewish people but on vast swaths of civilization. Through personal narratives and expert analysis, the film offers a profound look into the resilience of the Jewish people and offers an inspiring vision for fostering a more tolerant and peaceful world. | 54 | Wayne Kopping | Israel, USA | English | AJFF365 |
| 2024 | Tragic Awakening | In the wake of the October 7 pogrom in Israel, people of goodwill the world over have been forced to confront a chilling question: Why are the Jews so often the target of intense, genocidal hatred? This powerful documentary explores the roots of antisemitism through the unique insights of Arab Zionist, Rawan Osman. Tragic Awakening delves into the historical and cultural genesis of Jew-hatred, revealing its impact not only on the Jewish people but on vast swaths of civilization. Through personal narratives and expert analysis, the film offers a profound look into the resilience of the Jewish people and offers an inspiring vision for fostering a more tolerant and peaceful world. | 54 | Wayne Kopping | Israel, USA | English | Festival |
| 2024 | All About the Leftkoviches | The generous but stubborn boxing coach, Tam‡s gets along well with everyone but his own son. They have not spoken since the boy, Iv‡n, moved to Israel and became orthodox. When Tam‡s'' beloved wife, Zsuzsa dies unexpectedly, Tamas allows his son to sit Shiva in his house as long as he brings his grandson Ariel with him. As past conflicts resurface, they embark on an unexpected journey of self- reflection and reconciliation. Father and son are obliged not to face their old grievances during the one-week religious mourning, but to help Ariel deal with his own grief and his obsession that grandma''s spirit is still in the house. | 85 | çd‡m Breier | Hungary | Hungarian, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2024 | Yaniv | A high school teacher in the Bronx loses funding for the school musical and convinces his fellow statistics teacherÑsecretly a recovering gambling addictÑto help him cheat at an underground card game run by the Hasidic Jewish community. The plan goes awry with mounting consequences, but help comes at an unexpected time from the least likely people. | 85 | Amnon Carmi | USA | English | Festival |
| 2024 | The Glory of Life | Because of the power of love, the last year of Franz Kafka's life becomes his happiest. He has never before been able to allow himself to experience intimacy, but he is now suffering from tuberculosis and becoming dependent on his overbearing family. The worldly wise Dora Diamant accepts him as he is and he accepts her. The two meet in 1923 on the Baltic Sea coast, where he is convalescing and she is working in a Jewish Volksheim. Together they go to Berlin and, when Franz's health deteriorates rapidly, to a sanatorium in Austria. Barely a year after they meet, he dies. The memory of their time together will shape Dora for the rest of her life._ | 98 | Georg Maas, Judith Kaufmann | Germany, Austria | German | Festival |
| 2024 | Nor by Day, Nor By Night | A "born again" Sephardic family tries to integrate within the insular Ashkenazi ultra-orthodox community in Bnei Brak. Their son Raphael, a prodigy, is not accepted into a prestigious yeshiva. His mother, Ahuva, tries to handle the situation peacefully, but his father, Shmuel, a handyman with great faith, struggles to accept the situation. Shmuel fights to change this decree, leading to the family''s ostracization and their children''s expulsion from local institutions. A dramatic event shakes both the family and Haredi society, probing their shared faith. The film explores the struggles of Baalei Teshuva, their faith, their escape from the past, and the personal cost of their journey. | 105 | Phinehas Veuillet | Israel | Hebrew, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2024 | The Blond Boy from the Casbah | Passionate filmmaker Antoine travels to his birthplace, Algiers, with his young son to present his new film: an account of his childhood in Algeria during the country's civil war in the 1960s. As he wanders through the city, the filmmaker immerses us in the moments of happiness, laughter, and tears of his youth - spent between school, friends, and his Jewish family. Growing up in the final moments of Algeria's pre-independence period, the young Antoine discovers his profound fascination with cinema and starts to understand who he truly is. | 128 | Alexandre Arcady | France | French, Arabic | Festival |
| 2024 | Guns and Moses | Moses Zaltzman is a beloved Hasidic rabbi in a dusty desert town. When his congregation is violently attacked, police quickly arrest a young white nationalist who threatened them in the past, but Rabbi Mo thinks the troubled teen may be innocent. With no one else willing to investigate, Rabbi Mo becomes the detective, and as the bodies pile up, he must learn how to use a gun in order to battle the real enemy. At the heart of the film is the unexpected bond between the rabbi and an antisemite, as well as MoÕs looming fear that he wonÕt pull the trigger if he has to... and that he will. | 94 | Salvador Litvak | USA | English | Festival |
| 2024 | Auction | AndrŽ Masson, an auctioneer at ScottieÕs, receives a letter from a lawyer claiming that a common worker in the suburbs of Mulhouse owns a painting by Egon Schiele. AndrŽÕs first reaction is to believe that it can only be a fake. He decides to make the trip to Mulhouse anyway and against all odds, the painting turns out to be a masterpiece gone missing in 1939. This could undoubtedly be the turning point of his career, but after a brief investigation, he realizes that he has in his hands a looted work of art. | 91 | Pascal Bonitzer | France | French | Festival |
| 2024 | Iron Ladies | The previously untold story of a group of young Jewish housewives and mums, who, at the height of the Cold War, took on the might of the USSR in defense of the rights and freedoms of Soviet JewsÉ and won. The 35s were an international network of women with no political power or experience, who simply refused to stand idle in the face of Soviet tyranny and persecution of their co-religionists. Starting with demonstrations and protests, they progressed to a series of clandestine visits behind the Iron Curtain, worthy of a spy novel, posing as tourists in order to support and find out about the conditions of so-called ''Refusenik'' Jews. Helped by a top-secret Israeli Government agency, Nativ, these trips helped fuel political campaigns that secured the release of key dissidents, opening fissures that led to the eventual liberation of over a million Soviet Jews. For decades, the women kept their activities secret, but now, in their seventies and eighties, they are finally ready to talk. | 51 | Aoife Kelleher | Ireland, France, Germany | English | Festival |
| 2024 | Colleyville | Colleyville, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth, has a history of being ranked the safest city in Texas. It is so peaceful and so safe that (almost) no one has ever heard of it until January 15, 2022, when a terrorist seized Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville. The synagogue live-streamed its services via Facebook, and the streaming continued throughout the hostage situation. More than 200 local, state, and federal law enforcement officials, including a SWAT team and 70 FBI hostage negotiators and rescue operatives, were called in. For the first time, all of the hostages and their families tell their stories on camera. | 80 | Dani Menkin | USA | English | Festival |
| 2024 | Running on Sand | Aumari, a young Eritrean refugee living in Israel, is about to be deported back to his home country. After a spontaneous escape attempt at the airport, he is mistaken for a Nigerian soccer player, who is supposed to arrive at the same time. Aumari seizes the opportunity and benefits from his change of identity as the new key acquisitions for the team of ÔMaccabi NetanyaÕ. Despite the absence of any soccer talent, Aumari is able to cover-up and heal the divisions of his struggling team, while a tender romantic bond with charmingly unconventional daughter of the team owner is growing. | 104 | Adar Shafran | Israel | Hebrew, English, Tigrinya | Festival |
| 2024 | Seeds for Change | ''Recent reports from the United States government are telling us that we have a limited amount of time to take the steps that are necessary to control climate change...our very existence is at risk. In the end, climate change will be controlled by agriculture.Ó Way ahead of their time, Mark Feedman and Chela Lightchild, through their work with the Peace Corps in the early 1970s, discover and put into practice a sustainable solution to climate change. | 20 | Mike O'Krent | USA | English | Festival |
| 2024 | Song of Ascent | A powerful documentary/concert film chronicling Matisyahu's profound journey amidst the aftermath of the October 7th massacre in Israel. Bookended by two poignant trips to his ancestral homeland, the film captures Matisyahu's controversial US tour, where he faced cancellations and protests due to rising anti-Israel sentiment. Witness Matisyahu's intimate experiences at Kibbutzim, the Nova Festival site, rehab centers, and other locations deeply impacted by the tragedy. Through it all, Matisyahu performs three electrifying shows in Israel, becoming a defiant voice for Jewish people worldwide. | 86 | Shlomo Weprin | USA, Israel | English, Hebrew | Festival |
| 2024 | Lion of Zion | Yuri Foreman, the only world champion boxer from Israel, believes that balancing faith and fortitude can lead to greatness. After losing his title in 2010, he studied Judaism to understand the connection between his boxing pursuits and his spiritual quests. In 2014, he was ordained as a Rabbi. Despite being past his prime, Yuri is not done with the ring and strives to make history by becoming the first Rabbi Boxing Champion of the World. | 33 | Mike Musikanto | USA | English, Russian | Festival |
| 2024 | The Golem | A new spin on a classic Jewish folktale, this Hanukkah-set story follows three friends who accidentally reawaken a centuries-old clay monster. | 11 | Ethan Rubenstein | USA | English, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2024 | Judy-ism | While at her wedding cake tasting, Judy, a self-proclaimed ''Jew-ish'' woman, tastes a piece of Jewish apple cake and is catapulted back in time to her dreaded bat mitzvah in a reverse 13 Going on 30 Jewish nightmare. | 11 | Emily Lerer | USA | English | Festival |
| 2024 | The Soldier on Smithdown Road | Liverpool, 1947. Two British soldiers are kidnapped and murdered in Mandate Palestine. In the aftermath of the so-called ÔSergeants AffairÕ, a wave of antisemitic riots sweep across the UK. Louis Scholnick, a British-Jewish World War Two veteran, is forced to defend his familyÕs shop from a violent mob. | 13 | Barney Pell Scholes, Thomas Harnett O'Meara | UK | English, Yiddish | Festival |
| 2024 | Thirteen | Confronting her disabled daughter''s terminal diagnosis, a mother fights to have her become a Bat Mitzvah in their synagogue, which refuses to break from tradition. | 19 | Allison Norlian, Jean Li | USA | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2024 | The Orange at the Seder | When Adam brings his first-ever girlfriend to his beloved mentorÕs annual queer, all-male Passover seder, he must come out of the closet all over againÑputting his relationship with his chosen family in jeopardy. | 15 | Jacob Combs | USA | English | Festival |
| 2024 | The Hallway | Asia (58) and her son Oz (30) are leaving ''Sheba'' Tel Hashomer Hospital after visiting Gadi (60), the family''s father, who is diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Their walk through the ''endless'' hospital hallway becomes unbearable for Asia, as Oz makes his feelings heard about moving Gadi to a hospice. | 11 | Shahar Shamay | Israel | Hebrew | Festival |
| 2024 | Jew Town | After his mother-like figure Sarah Cohen passed away, Thaha Ibrahim dedicates his life to the legacy of Sarah Aunty''s embroidery shop in Kochi, India, where the once robust Jewish community is now dwindling. | 10 | Melodie Rosen | India | English, Malayalam | Festival |
| 2024 | Los Ultimos Judios de Guantanamo | There are a little over 200,000 people who live in Guantanamo, roughly 50 of whom are Jewish. In 1991, the Cuban government repealed its ban on religious practice, making it possible for people of all faiths to practice publicly. This film follows two octogenarians, Fortuna and Lidia, having their Bat-Mitzvah. They share their feelings of trepidation and awe at the looming ceremony. All of this is set within Guantanamo as we watch horses and buggies drive by and children playing soccer in the streets. | 13 | Yael Bridge | Cuba | Spanish | Festival |
