2024 EVENT GRID
Selected Venue:
Director(s): Various
Cuba, India, Israel, UK, USA
Year: 2023/24
Runtime: 180'
FREE!
World, US, Southwest, Texas premieres
Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Horror
Nov 15
A virtual presentation of ALL of our 2024 Festival shorts, with a single, free ticket. Includes additional films that are not playing in person.
Director(s): Ádám Breier
Hungary
Year: 2024
Runtime: 85'
Central Texas premiere
Dramedy
Nov 10, Nov 15
The generous but stubborn boxing coach, Tamás gets along well with everyone but his own son. They have not spoken since the boy, Iván, moved to Israel and became orthodox. When Tamás'' 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.
Director(s): Pascal Bonitzer
France
Year: 2024
Runtime: 91'
Southwest premiere
Drama
Nov 3, Nov 15
André Masson, an auctioneer at Scottie’s, receives a letter from a lawyer claiming that a common worker in the suburbs of Mulhouse owns a painting by Egon Schiele. André’s 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.
Director(s): Dani Menkin
USA
Year: 2024
Runtime: 80'
CLOSING NIGHT EVENT WITH RECEPTION
Central Texas premiere
Docmentary
Nov 10, Nov 15
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.
Director(s): Salvador Litvak
USA
Year: 2024
Runtime: 94'
OPENING NIGHT EVENT WITH RECEPTION
Southwest premiere
Action, Drama, Mystery
Nov 15
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 Mo’s looming fear that he won’t pull the trigger if he has to... and that he will.
Director(s): Aoife Kelleher
France, Germany, Ireland
Year: 2024
Runtime: 51'
World premiere
Docmentary
Nov 3, Nov 15
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 Jews… 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.
Director(s): Melodie Rosen
India
Year: 2024
Runtime: 10'
FREE!
US Premiere
Documentary, Short
Nov 15
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.
Director(s): Melodie Rosen
India
Year: 2024
Runtime: 10'
US premiere
Documentary, Short
Nov 15
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.
Director(s): Emily Lerer
USA
Year: 2023
Runtime: 11'
FREE!
Southwest premiere
Comedy, Short
Nov 15
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.