Virtual screening

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.

Length: 28 minutes

Director: Vanessa Reiser

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.

Adult language.

Length: 52 minutes

Director: Shuki Guzik

Writer: Shai Lahav

Aharon has devoted his life to raising his son Uri. They live together in a gentle routine, away from the real world. But Uri is autistic, and now as a young adult it might be time for him to live in a specialized home. While on their way to the institution, Aharon decides to run away with his son and hits the road, knowing that Uri is not ready for this separation. Or is it, in fact, his father who is not ready?

Brief nudity.

Length: 92 minutes

Cast: Shai Avivi

Director: Nir Bergman

Writer: Dana Idisis

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.

Length: 25 minutes

Director: Rob Cooper

For more information about this project, see spacetorahproject.com 

Film made by Verissima Productions.

At the beginning of the 20th century, an epidemic decimated the dwellers of a small Jewish village. 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?
Brief nudity.

Length: 17 minutes

Cast: Dorka Merenyi, Mari Nagy, György Gazsó, Péter Scherer, Gábor Krausz, Kata Kuna

Director: David Bodrogi

Writer: David Bodrogi

During the peak of the pandemic, a young Israeli woman living in New York goes on a virtual date with a nice young American man. It all goes perfectly well, until her mother decides to get involved.

Cast: Miki Kam, Noa Osheroff, Brad Silnutzer

Director: Noa Osheroff

Writer: Noa Osheroff

A picture taken in 1919 shows the family of Kopel Gringras. He was a renowned photographer from Kielce. He operated the ”Foto Moderne” atelier, in which he took pictures of people from the area unMl the beginning of the Second World War. Kopel Gringras did not survive the Holocaust. He perished in Treblinka, along with his wife and nearly all of his children. The surviving copy of the Gringras family portrait is blurry, damaged, and out of focus. Roman Gringras, Kopel’s grandson, now living in Paris, enlists the help of his sister from Warsaw and cousin from Israel to find the original photograph in order to get to see the faces of his ancestors clearly.

Length: 7 minutes

Director: Jakub Duszyński

Writer: Jakub Duszyński

This event is supported, in part, by:

We meet Ed Stein, an American Jewish man on a traumatic day in his life. He has received a letter from a tormentor from his past, a neo-Nazi bully named John Bauer who made his life hell when he was a teenager. Mr. Bauer is looking to make amends with his past. Ed Stein has never properly dealt with these issues and though long buried, still haunt him to this day.

Adult language.

Length: 12 minutes

Cast: Mark Schrier, Rodrigo Ternevoy, Joel Farrell

Director: Noel Brady

Writer: Mark Schrier and Noel Brady

This event is supported, in part, by:

‘I want to make a film about women’ is a speculative documentary 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.

Length: 12 minutes

Cast: Victoria Haralabidou, Liliya May, Inga Romantsova, Violette Ayad, Ever Sliter, Nadia Zwecker, Tug Dumbly and Richard James Allen

Director: Karen Pearlman

Writer: Karen Pearlman

This event is supported, in part, by:

 

July 2014. Israel is at war in Gaza. Uri, an Israeli soldier, is shot and wounded. At the hospital, he is welcomed as a hero. Between treatments and visits from high-profile generals and celebrities, Uri and his family reckon with his new status. An insider’s look at how war as a state-of-mind is shaping Israeli society.

Adult language.

Length: 29 minutes

Director: Adi Mishnayot