JFI Filmmakers in Residence

Filmmaker Residency Year

2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026

Film Type

Animation
Documentary
Episodic
Experimental
Feature
Narrative
Short
Shorts Program
Television Series

Country

Category

Feature
Short
Television
Web Series

Abraham Troen: Family Pictures

Abraham Troen: Family Pictures

When violence claims a mother and great granddaughter a century apart, one family’s past and present collide, forcing each generation to decide what legacy of peace, justice and dignity they will carry forward.

Amanda Rubin: The Third Reich of Dreams: Dreaming Under Dictatorship

From Weimar Activist to dream collector to New York celebrity stylist, the untold story of one woman’s undercover mission to collect evidence against the Nazis. A uniquely prophetic and penetrating insight into the psychological effects of totalitarianism.

Andrew Garbus: Everything I Own

Andrew Garbus: Everything I Own

Andrew Garbus’ parents are preparing to divorce and sell his childhood home. As rooms are packed and memories unearthed, the family is forced to confront a traumatic past, an uncertain future and, most of all, themselves.

Annie Berman: In Berlin

Annie Berman: In Berlin

IN BERLIN, a VR essay film, tells the story of a NYC-artist on her first and last trip to Berlin. Told she resembles Anne Frank, she floats through the city feeling like her doppelganger’s aged-ghost.

Ben Berkowitz: Vagrant Viking

Ben Berkowitz: Vagrant Viking

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.

Brian Becker: Meet Me At The Mall

"Meet Me At The Mall" traces the rise, fall, and potential reinvention of the most quintessentially American habitat: the enclosed shopping mall.

Charene Zalis: Repairing the World: Stories From the Tree of Life

Charene Zalis: Repairing the World: Stories From the Tree of Life

For three years REPAIRING THE WORLD: STORIES FROM THE TREE OF LIFE follows survivors, families of the victims, diverse community members, students and civic leaders as they examine their vulnerabilities and the impact of rising antisemitism, racism, hate speech, and gun violence. Against the backdrop of a tumultuous period in the country, a local community that has faced violence and trauma works to heal and grapple with what it means to be stronger than hate.

Daniel Hymanson: Wind Up

Daniel Hymanson: Wind Up

An artist must say goodbye to her historic Chicago home of 50 years to relocate to a senior apartment complex. Her filmmaker friend moves in and helps prepare the house for sale, as his own family joins together to confront a series of health crises.

David Santamaria: Harriet

David Santamaria: Harriet

A film about filmmaker David Santamaria's Aunt Harriet, who was one of New York City’s first female cab drivers.

Debra Schaffner: Curse of the Mutant Heirloom

Debra Schaffner: Curse of the Mutant Heirloom

A daughter excavates decades of estrangement from her Holocaust-survivor mother, fueled by a less visible predator – the BRCA cancer gene mutation. Robots and aliens join their human inspirations in this hybrid documentary about family, forgiveness, and expendable body parts.

Emile Bokaer: We Play Cinema

We Play Cinema is a multi-generational documentary self-portrait by Emile Bokaer, created in collaboration with his father Tsvi Bokaer. Blending contemporary observational footage with Tsvi’s long-lost 1960s 16mm films, son and father place past and present in direct conversation, to illuminate the lasting truth: cinema is as essential as life itself.

Emma D. Miller: Father Figures

When a retired theater director begins posting deeply intimate conversations with his growing collection of ventriloquist’s dummies, his daughter embarks on a quest to understand his motivations and repair a fraught relationship — using puppets.

Eva Ilona Brzeski: Daughterland

Eva Ilona Brzeski: Daughterland

A father attempts to hide his mysterious past for his whole life. His daughter spends 35 years trying to get him to share his secrets.

Hervé Cohen: This Little Song

Haunted by a childhood melody sung in Arabic by his Jewish grandmother, a filmmaker embarks on a journey across Algeria to rediscover a lost song and unravel the echoes of a once-thriving harmony between Jews and Muslims.

Hilla Medalia: Missing Vivian Silver

On the morning of October 7th, renowned peace activist Vivian Silver was assumed to be abducted by Hamas from her kibbutz near Gaza. As Israel launches a devastating attack on the Gaza Strip, Vivian’s sons, and beloved Jewish and Palestinian friends, struggle to hold onto Silver's vision and hope for peace.

Holden Kepecs: Star in the Ring

Holden Kepecs: Star in the Ring

Documentary film that tells the story of the time when Jews dominated the sport of boxing.

Ira Eduardovna: The Iron Road

Ira Eduardovna: The Iron Road

While recovering from a brain injury, a filmmaker creates an animated film tracing her family's journey from Soviet Uzbekistan, uncovering legends of migration and a railway that echoes across generations.

Jacob Fertig: Offcuts

Jacob Fertig: Offcuts

After the death of a disabled child, a family confronts conflicting memories of the institution where he lived. His concealed existence becomes the subject of collective reckoning as scenes from the past unspool.

Jeremy Borison: Alliance

When Yeshiva University’s Pride Alliance sued the institution for denying them an LGBTQ club on campus, the university rushed the case to the Supreme Court claiming an attack on their religious freedom. Now the subject of national attention, YUPA’s fight for equality has become the symbol for LGBTQ issues in the Orthodox community and across the country.

Joanna Rudnick: Brother

Joanna Rudnick: Brother

A filmmaker's brother opens up about his recovery from opioid use disorder.

Karin Kainer: Hot Spot

An intimate five-year coming-of-age journey follows Gen Z international students, some from enemy nations, whose paths first cross at a controversial boarding school for peace in conflict-ridden Israel during a global pandemic. As they transition into adulthood, navigating love, war, loss, and national conflict, their fragile friendships face the ultimate test: an uncertain and divided future.

Ken Paul Rosenthal: Julie Vinograd: Between Spirit and Stone

Ken Paul Rosenthal: Julie Vinograd: Between Spirit and Stone

A documentary about a street poet who threw bubbles instead of bricks.

Kit Vincent: Red Herring

When 24-year-old director Kit Vincent receives a terminal diagnosis, his first instinct is to turn on his camera and embark on an emotional, spiritual and darkly humorous journey.

Lauren Greenhall: Zelda

Lauren Greenhall: Zelda

In an ultra-orthodox Jewish community where married women wear wigs, the charismatic owner of the a beloved wig salon gets divorced and begins resenting the practice.

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