Film Archive | Jewish Film Institute

Exhibition Series

2020 Filmmakers in Residence
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Filtered By: USA Clear All

Rebecca Pierce: Half Freedom

Two African refugee activists fight against their community’s planned mass deportation from Israel, struggling alongside their Israeli and Palestinian neighbors.

Red Flag: Spotlight on Alex Karpovsky

A star of HBO’s hit comedy series Girls and Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture, Alex Karpovsky is one of America’s hottest emerging filmmakers and actors. Describing his onscreen persona as “his little Jewish engine of anxiety and guilt,” Karpovsky is a new generation’s Woody Allen. Red Flag, Karpovsky’s newest film as director/writer/actor, is his most biting satire. Alex Karpovsky will appear live at the Castro Theatre, followed by clips and discussion.

Red Shirley

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Regarding Susan Sontag

Regarding Susan Sontag reflects the boldness of Sontag’s work and the cultural importance of her thought, through extraordinary archival footage and still photographs, riveting interviews with Sontag’s friends and colleagues, and a rich tapestry of artifacts from popular culture. These are combined with creatively culled and manipulated images to create a nuanced, sophisticated portrait of a great thinker. Many Americans know Sontag’s name; the film shows us who she was, and why her thoughts about topics such as illness, photography, war, terrorism, and torture remain vitally important in the new world of the 21st century.

Remember This

The brilliant David Strathairn gives a mesmerizing one-man performance as Jan Karski, a WWII Polish resistance fighter, whose testimony was emotionally given in Claude Lanzmann’s "Shoah."

Remembering Gene Wilder (Opening Night)

The endearing comic genius of screen actor Gene Wilder comes to life in this affectionate tribute, chock full of uproarious clips, outtakes and poignant reminiscences.

Remembering Home

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The Return of Sarah's Daughters

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The Return of Tuvia

About This Film

Reverence

Batman, Homer Simpson, a New York Yankees logo – you’re likely to see any of these logos on the yarmulke of a Jewish boy in modern Jewish communities today. “Reverence” dissects the meaning and context behind branded kippahs and the concept of faith in a modern world while exploring the societal and religious norms that these garments may challenge, focusing on the notion of “fitting in” and “standing out” within the Reform and Conservative Jewish communities.

A group of three white people, one woman and two men, are sitting indoors. The woman and younger man are in motorized wheelchairs. The woman has cropped brown hair, red glasses, and is wearing a red blouse covered by a purple shawl. The younger man is wearing a checkered button down shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers. The older man is wearing a checkered button down shirt and khakis. All three individuals are smiling and appear to be in conversation.

The Ride Ahead | East Bay Closing Night

Turning 21 and disabled, Samuel Habib wants to date, leave home, go to college. Can a community of disability activist rebels help him follow his dreams?

Rise and Fall of the Borscht Belt

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Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg

Like Richard Pryor and George Carlin, he influenced a slew of the next generation of comics, and Robert Klein is still really funny! Klein is shown in his daily routines, providing a privileged look at the great comedian as he jokes about everyday life. Klein appeared on the Tonight Show and Letterman more than 100 times and hosted the third Saturday Night Live, appearing in the famous cheeseburger sketch. His spot-on impression of Rodney Dangerfield and his meeting with Don Rickles are some of the many highlights. Interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart and Bill Maher, as well as clips from some of Klein’s seminal routines, round out this delightful portrait.—Jay Rosenblatt

Roll Red Roll

When social media, “boys will be boys” culture and vigilante justice collided, Steubenville, Ohio, was forever changed

Rosenwald

Aviva Kempner’s Rosenwald is the incredible story of Julius Rosenwald, the son of an immigrant peddler who never finished high school, but rose to become the President of Sears. Influenced by the writings of the educator Booker T. Washington, this Jewish philanthropist joined forces with African American communities during the Jim Crow South to build over 5,300 schools during the early part of the 20th century.Rosenwald sheds light on this silent partner of the Pre-Civil Rights Movement. Rosenwald awarded fellowship grants to a who's who of African American intellectuals and artists of his day so that they could pursue their scholarship and art. They included: Marian Anderson, James Baldwin, the father and uncle of civil rights leader Julian Bond, Ralph Bunche, W. E. B. DuBois, Katherine Dunham, Ralph Ellison, John Hope Franklin, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Gordon Parks, Jacob Lawrence and Augusta Savage along with Woody Guthrie.Inspired by the Jewish ideals of tzedakah (charity) and tikkun olam (repairing the world) and a deep concern over racial inequality in America, Julius Rosenwald used his wealth to become one of America’s most effective philanthropists. Rosenwald also built YMCAs and housing for African Americans to address the pressing needs of the Great Migration.

Round Eyes in the Middle Kingdom

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Routes of Exile: A Moroccan Jewish Odyssey

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Russ Finkelstein: Our Home Is Not Of This World

Our Home Is Not Of This World follows the work of a medical examiner’s office in Texas that identifies people who die crossing the border, revealing its personal, political and spiritual significance.

Ruthie and Connie: Every Room in the House

Ruthie and Connie, a working-class Jewish lesbian couple in their 60's, share stories of their emergence as a lesbian couple, their previous marriages, and the everyday ups and downs of their relationship- all as a vehicle for exploring Jewish identity.

Saba

Saba is a metaphorical animated short film, about life, our journey and the endless effort to get closure with the meaningful people in our life.

Sabbath Queen

Sabbath Queen joins director Sandi DuBowski and his rabbi, Amichai, on a lifelong and cinematic quest to creatively and radically reinvent religion, ritual, and love for a challenging, rapidly changing twenty-first century.

Sabbath Queen | Closing Night

From drag-queen rebel to rabbi, Amichai Lau Lavie radically reinvents religion and ritual and establishes a God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation.

The Sacred Society

A documentary animated in sand about the volunteers who clean, dress, and prepare bodies for burial according to Jewish tradition.

Safe Spaces (After Class) | Next Wave Spotlight

"Safe Spaces" is a comedy about a NYC professor who spends a week re-connecting with his family while defending his reputation over controversial behavior at a college.

Salomea's Nose

Salomea remembers the day her beloved brothers, Max and Karl, disfigured her and themselves for life. The Day of Tragedy, is what their mother called it, and blamed it on the fate of her children. Though fate and tragedy have a different meaning by the end of her tale. A tragicomedy about sibling rivalry, disfigurement and the pain that binds us. With Barbara Sukowa as the voice of Salomea.

Sam Radutzky & Josh Fruend: Joyva

Joyva, the 113-year-old, family-run candy company, a beloved household name amongst Jewish Americans that’s woven into the fabric of their traditions, is at risk of going out of business, along with its legacy and four generations of dreams, which the great-grandchildren must now fight to save.

Closing Night: Sammy Davis, Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me

Closing Night: Director Sam Pollard’s riveting portrait of a supremely complex, courageous and very talented man.

Sari Gilman: One Family

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.

Satan & Adam

LOCAL SPOTLIGHT: This doc captures the unlikely teaming up of a young Jewish harmonica player and a Black street musician.

Sauna Dreams

Dave Roffman, Sauna Athlete, is on a quest to win the 2023 World Sauna Championships in Detroit.

Saved By Deportation: An Unknown Odyssey of Polish Jews

Most Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust did so because of being deported to Stalin’s gulags and then living out the war in the southern Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. A blessing, if a mixed one, as Saved by Deportation recounts with wit and charm, following two lively eighty-somethings back to the scene where they came of age.

Scar of the Earth

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.

Scarface

Warning: This is not a Jewish movie! Scarface is an unforgettable gangster classic featuring exceptional Jewish actor Paul Muni (born Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund). Muni plays Tony Camonte (aka Scarface), a bloodthirsty Prohibition-era mobster on the rise. Director Howard Hawks’ early talkie is an excellent example of a gangster picture that would have had a Jewish subtext for Jewish audiences of its day because of Muni’s fame in the Yiddish theatre.

Scenes from the Divide

Exploring the perspectives of New Yorkers on both sides of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for mayor of New York, this film reveals a fierce battle among American Jews over identity, history, and responsibility.

Science Fair

Nine optimistic and ambitious high schoolers compete for spots at Intel’s International Science Engineering Fair.

Scottsboro: An American Tragedy

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