Virtual screening

In the summer of 2018, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art enlists Yotam Ottolenghi, the London-based Israeli chef and celebrated author of cookbooks Jerusalem and Plenty, to organize a food gala inspired by the Met exhibit “Visitors to Versailles.” In preparation for the event, Ottolenghi travels to the Palace of Versailles. At the landmark French site, the famed chef is possessed by a child-like curiosity, as he finds in Versailles a glimpse into the French Monarchy’s decadence.
And so Ottolenghi, with the help of pastry chefs (including “Cronut” maestro Dominique Ansel), positions The Met event as both an expression and critique of excess. Several centuries ago in Versailles, the royal family lived in public to help broadcast the country’s splendor and wealth. Ottolenghi fast-forwards to the advent of social media and finds a new aristocracy streaming their riches, food, and prosperity. In both eras, we see deep exclusion, longing for community, a patriarchal structure – and the same potential for revolution.

NOTE: Ticket for AJFF Q&A with filmmakers and chefs on Dec. 20 included.

Cast: Yotam Ottolenghi, Dominique Ansel, Ghaya Oliveira, Dinara Kasko, Sam Bompas, Janice Wong.

Director: Laura Gabbert

Set almost entirely in a Chinese restaurant, Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas is an offbeat, irreverent musical documentary that tells the story of a group of Jewish songwriters, including Irving Berlin, Mel Tormé, Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, Gloria Shayne Baker and Johnny Marks, who wrote the soundtrack to Christianity’s most musical holiday. It’s an amazing tale of immigrant outsiders who became irreplaceable players in pop culture’s mainstream – a generation of songwriters who found in Christmas the perfect holiday in which to imagine a better world, and for at least one day a year, make us believe in it.

Order up your favorite Chinese take out and chow down as you enjoy this entertaining and informative movie!

Cast: Ben Sidran, Jackie Mason, Mark Breslin, Rob Bowman, Ophira Eisenberg, and Robert Harris.

Director: Larry Weinstein

Writer: Jason Charters

Supported by:

Benefitting:

Marvell Ginsburg’s renowned children’s book has been educating young children about the Holocaust for generations, telling the true story of the rescue and restoration of a small Torah from Czechoslovakia. This is now an animated film, narrated by Ed Asner, that brings illustrator Martin Lemel- man’s rich artwork to life and allows this story of redemption to reach a much broader audience.

Film: 21 minutes

Director: Marc Bennett

Production countries: USA

Year: 2019

The LAJFF have a special event for this film on Monday, December 7:

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 today. 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 war kindled by hubris. 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 with key figures from Menachem Begin’s time as Prime Minister.

Film: 85 minutes

Director: Levi Zini

Production country: Israel

Year: 2020

In this heartwarming, sweetly funny romance-dramedy, a thirty-something Israeli couple develops baby fever, putting their relationship to the test in a frenzy to get pregnant. Liran and Tali are happily married, but their
lives are missing one thing: a baby. With the biological clock ticking, they embark on protracted fertility treatments, a physical and emotional roller-coaster of medical procedures, and regimented lovemaking. Facing pressure from family, friends, and each other, it’s soon clear that the road to parenthood is no walk in the park. Tackling a sensitive topic with earnest performances, this frank portrayal of modern pregnancy landed four Ophir (Israeli Academy Award) nominations, including Best Director.
MATURE LANGUAGE, NUDITY, SEXUAL CONTENT

Film: 90 minutes

Director: Erez Tadmor

Production country: Israel

Year: 2019

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 to life imprisonment. 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 in the film. When the two stories intertwine, tensions erupt.
MATURE LANGUAGE, DRUG USE

Film: 96 minutes

Director: Ram Loevy

Production country: Israel

Year: 2019

Watch our Q&A with Ram Loevy, director of THE DEAD OF JAFFA.

“Tired of being pushed around, a disenfranchised Sephardic father, whose daughter is expelled from a school for her ethnicity, launches the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party.”
When Yakov Cohen’s daughter is expelled from school for ethnic reasons, he decides to fight back. It’s 1983, and Yakov, a printer in Jerusalem, is just a regular guy. He has no knowledge of politics, no money, no connections, and no political experience. But he does have the will and the passion to take action, and a belief that he and other Sephardic Jews should be able to hold their heads up high. Yakov brings two friends along, and together they start the first ethnic political group in Jerusalem, with an operation characteristic of the people they represent: not the suit-wearing types, but rather the people working their way up from the bottom. Their operation is informal, full of love for their fellow man, and animated by a sense of humor and a great deal of rage.

Film: 99 minutes

Director: Eliran Malka

Production country: Israel

Year: 2018

A comedy about how a mishap at a Jerusalem synagogue causes a major rift in a devout community in Jerusalem.”
When the women’s balcony in a small Jerusalem synagogue collapses, leaving the rabbi’s wife in a coma and the rabbi in shock, the congregation falls into crisis. A charismatic Hasidic rabbi appears to be a savior after the accident, but he slowly starts pushing his fundamentalist ways among the Modern Orthodox congregants. The changes he tries to impose test the women’s friendships and create a rift between the community’s women and men in this rousing tale about women speaking truth to patriarchal power.

Film: 96 minutes

Directors: Shlomit Nehama and Emil Ben-Shimon

Production country: Israel

Year: 2016

“A Holocaust survivor’s son living in Trieste as a surgeon begins to doubt his actions of refusing to help a victim of a traffic accident. An unusual moral tale.”
Simone Segre, a renowned surgeon of Jewish origins, lives in the city of Trieste in the northeast of Italy. He has a quiet life, an elegant apartment, and no connection with his past. One day he finds himself assisting a male victim of a hit-and-run accident. But when he discovers a Nazi tattoo on his 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.
MATURE CONTENT

Film: 96 minutes

Director: Mauro Mancini

Production countries:  Italy, Poland

Year: 2020

”Can we leave past sins behind? Our sages say we can.” Such are the opening lines that introduce this moving story about the relationship between a dedicated yeshiva student, Yochai, and terminally-ill 18-year-old Ayelet. When Ayelet is diagnosed with advanced bone cancer, she stubbornly refuses treatment. Her desperate father asks Yochai to become her spiritual mentor with the hope that he can persuade her to seek medical help. Ayelet is amused by what she perceives as Yochai”s awkward innocence but fascinated by his attempts to forge a deep relationship with God. Yochai, for his part, is mesmerized by Ayelet”s beauty and grace and is totally overwhelmed by being in such close proximity to a woman for the first time in his life. Finding himself deeply attracted to Ayelet, Yochai faces the most difficult decision of his life–whether to leave the yeshiva or abandon his newfound love.

Film: 62 minutes

Director: Amichai Greenberg

Production country: Israel

Year: 2015