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The JFI Filmmakers in Residence Program is a year-long artist residency that provides creative, marketing, and production support for emerging and established filmmakers whose documentary projects explore and expand thoughtful consideration of Jewish history, life, culture, and identity. Residents: participate in monthly cohort meetings; attend capacity-enhancing workshops with industry professionals and experts; consult with JFI staff on industry best practices in marketing, fundraising, production, and exhibition; and refine their project pitches through mentorship and a pitch forum with industry experts. Residents receive: a complimentary JFI Filmmaker membership; access to all JFI programs and events; a travel stipend toward the expense of attending an annual convening at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival; visibility in JFI promotional materials; and access to the Ninth Street Independent Film Center's on-site screening room.
HOLY SILENCE, a documentary film from Emmy-nominated director Steven Pressman, takes a fresh look at a topic that has sparked controversy for decades. During the years leading up to World War II, what was the Vatican's reaction to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany? And after the war began, how did the pope respond to the horrors of the Holocaust?
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ONE FAMILY is about the wildly divergent views on Israel that exist within the filmmaker's own Jewish family. A hybrid of fiction and nonfiction, it is a meditation on the meaning of home and belonging.
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Peter Freuchen may have looked upon himself as a vagrant, but the world will once again know him for what he really was: an indomitable Viking, who spoke his mind and fought for the betterment of humanity.
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THE LONELY CHILD is a feature documentary that tells the story of a little-known Yiddish lullaby “Dos Elnte Kind” written inside the Vilna Ghetto during the Holocaust.
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Watch the journey unfold in this short comedic docuseries about one queer couple's journey to parenthood through the foster-to-adoption process. Along the way they seek out advice from other fost-adopt families and expand their search in ways they never imagined.
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Finding an old suitcase, filmmaker, daughter Melinda Hess looks inside and finds an unopened letter from the piles of her Jewish family’s ephemeral materials. The discovery of the 1946 letter inspires her journey to uncover an American Space Race story as seen through a daughter and Father story lens, revealing the true story of how we got to the moon from the rocket slave camps of the Holocaust.
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MY PEEPS ARE WHITEYS is an exploration of identity and how we become who we are. Meika Rouda was adopted as a newborn and never knew her biological background until she was in her thirties and trying to make a family of her own. Because she has exotic looks, she often had people tell her what ethnicity they thought she might be, and in turn sometimes took on those identities to see if they fit.
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A film about filmmaker David Santamaria's Aunt Harriet, who was one of New York City’s first female cab drivers.
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Yael Luttwak (SFJFF 2012 Filmmaker in Residence) returns home and turns her camera on her father, famed Department of Defense military strategist Edward Luttwak. The film offers a rare and complex glimpse of beltway politics through these political polar opposites.
Read More"The JFI Residency has been an incredible network of peers and mentors who have helped support me through various stages of my project. Whether it's support on a critical issue or question, creative feedback on scenes, or just generally trading stories on the ins and outs of working on a feature film, the residency has been such a generative community for me."
Simon Mendes, 2022 Filmmaker in Residence
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