Film Archive | Jewish Film Institute

Exhibition Series

2020 Filmmakers in Residence
2020 JFI Completion Grants
2021 Filmmakers in Residence
2021 JFI Completion Grants
2022 Filmmakers in Residence
2022 JFI Completion Grants
2023 Filmmakers in Residence
2023 JFI Completion Grants
2024 Filmmakers in Residence
2024 JFI Completion Grants
2025 Filmmakers in Residence
2025 JFI Completion Grants
2026 Filmmakers in Residence
2026 JFI Completion Grants
Cinegogue Summer Days
JFI Filmmakers in Residence
JFI/JSP Momentum Awards
Pre-2020 Filmmaker In Residence
SFJFF 1981
SFJFF 1982
SFJFF 1983
SFJFF 1984
SFJFF 1985
SFJFF 1986
SFJFF 1987
SFJFF 1988
SFJFF 1989
SFJFF 1990
SFJFF 1991
SFJFF 1992
SFJFF 1993
SFJFF 1994
SFJFF 1995
SFJFF 1996
SFJFF 1997
SFJFF 1998
SFJFF 1999
SFJFF 2000
SFJFF 2001
SFJFF 2002
SFJFF 2003
SFJFF 2004
SFJFF 2005
SFJFF 2006
SFJFF 2007
SFJFF 2008
SFJFF 2009
SFJFF 2010
SFJFF 2011
SFJFF 2012
SFJFF 2013
SFJFF 2014
SFJFF 2015
SFJFF 2016
SFJFF 2017
SFJFF 2018
SFJFF 2019
SFJFF 2021
SFJFF 2023
SFJFF 2024
SFJFF 2025
SFJFF 2026
SFJFF Madrid
SFJFF Moscow
WinterFest 2019
WinterFest 2026

Country

Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belarus
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
Chile
China
Colombia
Cuba
Cyprus
Czechia
Czechoslovakia
Denmark
Egypt
Ethiopia
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
India
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Latvia
Lebanon
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Mali
Mexico
Morocco
Netherlands
Norway
Palestine
Palestinian Territories
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Russia
Slovakia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Tunisia
Turkey
Uganda
Ukraine
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay
USA
Uzbekistan
Venezuela

Language

Albanian
Amharic
Arabic
Bambara
Berber
Bosnian
Bulgarian
Cambodian
Cameroonian
Catalan
Chinese
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
Farsi
French
Georgian
German
Gikuyu
Greek
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Icelandic
Igbo
Italian
Japanese
Kazakh
Ladino
Latvian
Lithuanian
Mandarin
Moroccan
Norwegian
Patois
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Romanian
Romany
Russian
Silent
Silent Film w/ English Intertitles
Slovak
Spanish
Swahili
Swedish
Tagalog
Thai
Tigrinya
Turkish
Ukrainian
Yiddish
Zaghawan

Film Type

Animation
Documentary
Episodic
Experimental
Feature
Narrative
Short
Shorts Program
Television Series

Filtered By: USA Clear All

House of Z

This chronicle of the fascinating career of fashion designer Zac Posen, known to many as a celebrity judge on Project Runway, shows how Posen began designing as a teen. With his family’s support, he enjoyed a meteoric rise. Friendships with famous women (Claire Danes and Natalie Portman) helped catapult him to fame. But when his career stalls, Posen struggles with depression. His plans for a comeback will have audiences cheering for the likeable and talented artist.

Human Remains

About This Film

Human Theories

Human Theories is a comedy comprised of interconnected scenes showcasing offbeat, amusing, failed attempts at connection in modern city life.

Hummus! The Movie

Where can you find the best hummus in the world? From Suheila, a single Muslim woman who is known for her legendary hummus, to Jalil, a Christian Arab hipster in Ramle who runs his father’s hummus joint, to Eliyahu, a born-again Orthodox Jew who owns a hummus restaurant chain, this fun and fascinating film about the highly competitive hummus restaurant business in Israel shows how powerful this chickpea spread can be. —Tamar Fox

Humoresque

About This Film

Hundred and Two Mature: The Art of Harry Lieberman

About This Film

Hungry Hearts

This don’t-miss event combines a classic Lower East Side silent melodrama with a brand new commissioned score performed live on the Castro stage by the Moab Strangers. Composer Ethan Miller (Howlin Rain, Comets on Fire) and a slew of talented Bay Area psychedelic and folk heroes provide an inspired, cutting-edge soundtrack to the 1922 restored silent Hungry Hearts. The film is adapted from the short stories of Anzia Yezierska, a Jewish writer whose rags-to-riches tales of immigrant hardship led to her nickname, the Sweatshop Cinderella. Produced by Samuel Goldwyn and shot on location in New York, Hungry Hearts is a vividly drawn portrait of a struggling Jewish family, at once tragic and richly comic.

I Don't Know What I'm Doing Here

Guided by her grandmother’s unmarked photographs, an American college student journeys through Romania, searching for the village her family once called home.

I Heart NY

A short film about the creator of the infamous I Heart NY logo and his struggle to find love for the city in a trying time.

I Like It a Lot

Principal cast: the director’s two-year-old, Ella; a chocolate ice cream cone; and a clean white shirt.

I Like it Here

In this gratifying personal essay, acclaimed documentarian Ralph Arlyck shares his humorous and insightful personal reflections on the challenges of aging, and the pleasures of being alive.

I Like It Here

A figurehead of American independent documentary film, Ralph Arlyck conveys how it feels to see the winding down of your life, as he spends time with older friends from his past and present, and his children and grandchildren.

I Like Killing Flies

Shopsin’s is the quintessential New York restaurant, inhabited by the equally prototypical New York chef, Kenny, in this character study par excellence. But his culinary legerdemain is only half of what you get when you enter his domain, and heaven help you if it’s with a group of five. Kenny’s observations about life, politics, food, and sex give this film a vitality that doesn’t let up. I was desperate to eat at Shopsin’s by the end.--Geoffrey Gilmore, Sundance Film Festival

I Miss the Sun

About This Film

I Stare at You and Dream

About This Film

I Wanna Be Famous

About This Film

I Want to Be a Border

About This Film

I, Dalio (or, The Rules of The Game)

About This Film

I'm A Mitzvah

A young American man spends one last night with his deceased friend while stranded in rural Mexico.

I'm Charlie Chaplin

About This Film

Image Before My Eyes

About This Film

Imaginal Disk

A cinematic companion to Magdalena Bay’s eponymous album, "Imaginal Disk" expands its kaleidoscopic world into a bold, visually driven narrative.

Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust

This definitive new documentary on how Hollywood movies have portrayed the Holocaust weaves together fascinating clips from dozens of films, many of them rare or forgotten, along with illuminating commentary from the likes of Steven Spielberg and Sidney Lumet.

In Dark Places: Remembering the Holocaust

About This Film

In Her Own Time

About This Film

In Memory

About This Film

In Our Own Hands: The Hidden Story

About This Film

In Search of Peace (Part One: 1948-1967)

About This Film

In Search of the Bene Israel

about Jews in India.

In the Family

Filmmaker Joanna Rudnick was 27 years old when she discovered she had BRCA—a genetic mutation that is particularly high among Ashkenazi Jewish women. We join Rudnick as she struggles with an impossible decision—whether to remove her healthy breasts and ovaries or risk a staggeringly high likelihood of developing a deadly cancer. The result is a powerful and gripping documentary that is as life-affirming as it is heartbreaking.

In the Garden of Tulips

Set amongst the backdrop of the Iran-Iraq war, Sharif and his fifteen year old daughter, Caroline take their last car ride together before her life is changed forever.

In the Image: Palestinian Women Capture the Occupation

Bay Area filmmakers (Oscar-nominated Judith Montell and Emmy Scharlatt, in her feature directorial debut) profile the Camera Project from Jerusalem-based human rights watchdog group B’Tselem. By providing Palestinians in the Occupied Territories with inexpensive video cameras and film training this organization has empowered them to document human rights violations and provide evidence to the public and to Israeli authorities. Interviews filmed by three Palestinian women highlight this striking documentary. Preceded by Mirror Image

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power

While many sequels do not live up to their predecessors, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is a rare exception. A decade after An Inconvenient Truth, local filmmakers Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk follow Vice President Al Gore as he continues his tireless efforts to alert the human inhabitants of this planet to the catstrophic consequences of climate change and the urgency to take action.

Indignation

The award-winning writer and producer James Schamus (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain) crafts a poignant and faithful adaptation of Philip Roth’s Indignation as his directorial debut. Hailed by Roth himself as the best film adaptation of his work, Indignation is a moving portrait of Marcus Messner, the son of a Kosher butcher who sets off for college in 1950’s Ohio and finds his atheist self at odds with its Christian Midwestern culture.- Lexi LebanScreened at 2016 Sundance Film Festival

Ingelore

As a deaf Jew in 1930s Germany, Ingelore Herz Honigstein was an outcast twice over. Frank Stiefel’s portrait of his mother is both a loving tribute and a remarkable feat of compressed storytelling, as Ingelore narrates in speech and sign the harrowing events leading up to her immigration to America.

Insurance

About This Film

...