Highlighting SFJFF41 films about writers, directors, and producers identifying as female and nonbinary.
An artistic excommunication set on Wall Street in 2008. A Kaddish For Bernie Madoff is a mystical meta-musical about the greatest financial fraud in history, as seen through the eyes of musician/poet Alicia Jo Rabins.
When maverick Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Debra Chasnoff is diagnosed with stage-4 breast cancer, she faces injustice as always, with her camera.
about a bold high school student who sets out to seduce her older, self-obsessed family friend while touring his university.
A joyful tribute to perseverance, resiliency, and most of all the music, The Conductor is a profile of one groundbreaking woman who believes in the transformational power of art.
Raging, out-of-control wildfires have become part of the new normal around the globe, leaving heartbreaking devastation and death in their wake. In California, this harsh reality was underscored on November 8, 2018, when several parts of the state were ablaze—the Camp Fire destroying most of the Northern California town of Paradise and the Woolsey Fire roaring through Malibu in the south. In the aftermath, residents face unthinkable loss. As they struggle to rebuild, they debate what could be done to prevent further tragedy.
As Nazis separate children from their parents in the Warsaw Ghetto, a gang of women risks everything to smuggle their friend's three-month-old baby to safety.
Who hasn’t asked themselves the question “why be in a relationship?” Sure enough, filming in between her 20s and 30s, American Birthright’s director and producer Becky Tahel, doesn’t take any answer for granted, and even complicates the question by making a documentary about it.
What can history tell us about the present? Filmmakers Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker (Karl Marx City) search for answers, taking inspiration from Sebastian Haffner’s 1978 German best-selling book The Meaning of Hitler. Shot in nine countries, the film explores what Hitler means in the current waves of white supremacy, antisemitism, and the weaponization of history. We hear provocative insights from historians and writers such as Martin Amis, Deborah Lipstadt, and Saul Friedlander, along with famed Nazi hunters Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, on why understanding history is more urgent than ever.
Legendary Polish filmmaker and recipient of SFJFF's Freedom of Expresson Award, Agnieszka Holland's newest film is a richly drawn biopic of Czech healer Jan Mikolášek who rose to fame through his uncanny ability to diagnose disease with a mere glance at the patient's urine.
The untold story of the only Jewish baby who was born in the death camp before the liberation and
survived. An extraordinary journey of the second and third generation, breaking the cycle of trauma to
free themselves from Auschwitz – forever.
Imagine that the city where you were born is suddenly split in two, with a better half and a worse half. And you’re enclosed in the latter, by a wall 3 metres high, with broken glass and rolls of barbed wire along the top. If you cross it, they’ll kill you. If you stay, you’ll slowly die of starvation anyway. That is precisely what happened in Eastern Europe, in Poland’s capital city of Warsaw in the 1940s. “Why does nobody ask me if there was love in the ghetto? Why is nobody interested?” asked Marek Edelman, resistance fighter and the last leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, shortly before his death in 2009. In this film, he answers that very question, telling us that good and beauty did exist in the hell of the ghetto. And there was love, too. That was of the greatest value – even greater than life itself. A strong, unconditional love where you are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice and give yourself completely to another person, body and soul.
Shortly after the death of his unique uncles, Didier Frenkel descends to the basement of their shared home and finds a treasure: an ancient animated archive from Egypt starring Mish-Mish Effendi, the Arabic equivalent of Mickey Mouse. His uncles have kept this surprising chapter in 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.
The Jewish National Fund's ubiquitous Blue Boxes were an internationally successful fundraising campaign to support the purchase and forestation of land in Israel. This thought-provoking documentary focuses on Joseph Weits, a seminal figure in the growth of the organization, its tree-planting programs and the subsequent myth-building of a national narrative.
At the age of 14 every school child in Germany is taught about the atrocities that occurred under Nazi rule. Filmmaker Elena Horn returns to her small hometown in rural Germany to follow four children as they first learn about the Holocaust.
Founded in the 1960s as a grassroots lobbying group, AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has grown into one of the most powerful organizations in US politics. Never one to shy away from controversial topics, Israeli director Mor Loushy (The Oslo Diaries, Censored Voices) has gained unprecedented access to some of AIPAC’s key insiders, crafting an extensively detailed, and largely untold, history of the pro-Israel lobby and their methods.
Acclaimed directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West follow the rousing success of their Academy Award nominated RBG with a new documentary based on the life of attorney, activist, priest, and memoirist Pauli Murray, who inspired Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
A short animated documentary that tells the story of the previous owners of the filmmaker's violin.
Rachel is losing her sight to the point she can't even call her daughter who is in labor on the other side of the world. Seeking for help, she opens her door to passersby strangers, striving for one moment of connection.
I follow the tracks of my great-great-aunt in Kiev. My mother tells her story, her tragic death and reveals a dramatic part of the history of the Holocaust.
Reconstructing one last encounter with Dad.
Snowy, a four-inch-long pet turtle, has lived an isolated life in the family basement. With help from a team of experts and his caretaker, Uncle Larry, we ask: Can Snowy be happy, and what would it take?
Jacob goes out, for the first time in his life, to a gay party, but discovers that his skin color prevents him from being accepted into the community. The film is part of the ""Equals"" project, by the Gesher Multicultural Film Fund.
A middle aged Hasidic bookbinder, in his search for binding materials, stumbles across a craigslist ad offering "binding lessons for submissive women." He responds to it, becoming entangled in an emotionally intense BDSM relationship with a stranger on the internet that threatens to unravel his quiet life.
A Bat Mitzvah girl caught in the middle finds a way to enter adulthood.
A day in the lives of a 12 years old kid with special needs and his 14 year old sister.
Julia, an experienced history teacher in a rather quiet high school, faces a school inspector.
An artistic excommunication set on Wall Street in 2008, A Kaddish For Bernie Madoff is a mystical meta-musical about the greatest financial fraud in history, as seen through the eyes of musician/poet Alicia Jo Rabins.
When maverick Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Debra Chasnoff is diagnosed with stage-4 breast cancer, she faces injustice as always, with her camera.
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