2022 Film Guide

Show by: Film | Festival Sections

Festival Sections

Awakenings: Stories of Transformation
JFI Supported Films
Next Wave
Present Tense: Contested Histories
Radiant Truths: Seeing Beyond Ourselves
Short Films
Special Presentations
Streaming Films
Take Action

Explore More

Arts & Culture
Bay Area Interest
Documentaries
First-Person Filmmaking
Guests In Attendance
LGBTQ+ Stories
Narratives
Shorts Programs
Shorts with Features

Country

Austria
France
Germany
Hungary
Israel
Italy
Japan
Netherlands
Poland
Spain
Switzerland
Turkey
Ukraine
United States

Venues

Albany Twin
Castro Theatre
Digital Screening Room

Filtered By: 2021 Clear All

Haute Couture

When Esther (Nathalie Baye), a Parisian seamstress on the verge of retirement, offers a troubled young woman an internship at Dior, their disparate lives become as entangled as the threads in their needlework.

Let It Be Morning (Closing Night)

Let It Be Morning (Closing Night)

A wedding brings a middle-class Palestinian businessman and his family back to the small Arab village where he grew up. An unexpected military lockdown forces him to reassess his past and confront his future.

The Man in the Basement

The Man in the Basement

When a Parisian couple decides to sell their basement storage cellar, the buyer makes it his residence and turns their comfortable life into a tense and gripping nightmare.

More Than I Deserve

More Than I Deserve

All Pinhas wants is a supportive family life and to study for his bar mitzvah. His secular, single, hard-working mother can't provide it. Maybe their religious neighbor can.

On This Happy Note

On This Happy Note

Internationally renowned feminist Israeli playwright and TV writer Anat Gov meditates on how to best prepare for the end of her life. There is such a thing as a happy ending.

Perfect Strangers

Perfect Strangers

Seven longtime friends gather for dinner to watch a rare lunar eclipse but the evening takes an unexpected turn when they start playing a game that’ll change the course of their lives forever.

The Restless Hungarian

The Restless Hungarian

A family’s story across three continents and four generations, from Kristallnacht to the atomic age, from the Bauhaus to our house, and from reason to madness.

Schächten

In the late 1960s, when a young Jewish businessman fails to secure just punishment for the Nazi concentration camp commandant who murdered his loved ones, he resolves to take the law into his own hands.

Speer Goes to Hollywood

Speer Goes to Hollywood

A cautionary tale about one of Hitler’s closest confidants, Albert Speer, and his 1971 attempt to whitewash his past with a Hollywood adaptation of his bestselling memoir, "Inside the Third Reich."

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Download the SFJFF42 Program Guide

Special Presentations

SFJFF42's Special Presentations honor stories big and small, illuminate the diversity of Jewish experiences, champion freedom of expression, and delight with their wit and charm. This year’s special screenings feature virtuosic performances, partnerships with fellow arts organizations, untold histories and uncomfortable truths, and more.

JFI Supported Stories

The Jewish Film Institute champions emerging and established filmmakers telling bold stories about Jewish life, culture, and identity through our Filmmaker Residency and Completion Grants programs. SFJFF42 is proud to showcase this dynamic group of films that received JFI support in their creation.

Next Wave Films

JFI Next Wave is a community of Bay Area filmmakers with an eye on the up and coming, and it is a platform for films and filmmakers that challenge and expand our ideas of Jewish storytelling. These films explore modern life and identity through a Jewish lens, often dealing with subjects like art, music, travel, social justice and more.

Take Action Films

Today's national conversation and political moment has inspired a powerful revolution of filmmakers applying their trade to the moment’s most pressing issues. Focusing on issues like climate change, abortion rights, and the fight against white nationalist violence, these films respond to the urgency of our times and embolden us to take concrete action to repair the world.

Awakenings: Stories of Transformation

As we return to the movies, SFJFF42 is highlighting stories that reflect our current moment of personal and societal awakening. What moves us from a space of inertia to action, in our lives and in the world? Who do we become when we pass the point of no return? These films ask those questions, and leave it to the audience to come up with the answers.

Present Tense: Contested Histories

Our current moment is one of grappling with history. Questions of whose stories become the popular narrative, and whose remain hidden from view, are frontline conversations in communities around the world. These films reexamine commonly accepted truths with a fresh lens, unearthing aspects of the past that illuminate our present reality.

Radiant Truths: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

What if, instead of being threatened by perspectives that challenge our own, we embraced the possibility that they have something to teach us? These films embody the idea of “multiple truths” by sharing a multiplicity of (sometimes contradictory) ideas and experiences.

Short Films

Don't miss the thirty-one short films in this year's program, each of which tells a big story. All narrative shorts compete for the SFJFF Film Movement Award and all documentary shorts compete for the juried Best Short Documentary Award, the winner of which is eligible for the Academy Award in Documentary (Short Subject).

Streaming Films

For those who prefer an at-home viewing experience, SFJFF42 offers more than a dozen programs online, available in the JFI Digital Screening Room from August 1–7, 2022. Selected titles include repeat presentations from the in-person Festival and stellar titles only streaming online.