Film Archive | Jewish Film Institute

Exhibition Series

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Filtered By: USA Clear All

Sons of Detroit

Part love letter, part detective story, a white man raised in a Black family joins his cousin to unravel the tangled story of race, violence, and love that shaped their lives. Take part in a special Work in Progress screening.

Sons of Detroit

The story of a family forged in 1970s Detroit. Two boys — one white, one black — raised as cousins. As the city teeters on the edge of economic collapse, the boys’ lives take radically different turns, each shaped by violence, opportunity, and race. Now, more than 20 years later, they each return to the city to reckon with the loss of home and family — and their roles in the destruction.

Sosua

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Souvenir

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Space Torah

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Spark Among the Ashes: A Bar Mitzvah in Poland

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Spartacus

SFJFF Freedom of Expression honoree Kirk Douglas is gladiator Spartacus, leader of a slave revolt in pre-Christian Rome, in Stanley Kubrick’s restored widescreen spectacle. Two politically committed leftists, Jewish novelist Howard Fast and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, wrote and adapted this epic that went on to win four Academy Awards. In a heroic revolt of his own, star and producer Douglas insisted on giving rightful credit to Red Scare target Trumbo, effectively ending the Hollywood blacklist.

A Specially Wonderful Affair

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Spell Your Name

Co-produced by Steven Spielberg, this impressionistic documentary explores the fragile legacy of the Holocaust in Ukraine, crafted from survivors’ and rescuers’ testimonies preserved in the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education. Piecing together a history nearly erased, Sergey Bukovksy combines these testimonies with stunning contemporary images and archival footage into a visually poetic mashup of Eastern European Jewish history, personal witness, post-Soviet society and contemporary Ukraine.

The Stage Is Ours

Nearly 50 Jewish actors, playwrights, and directors gather at Broadway's Lyceum Theatre to reflect on the history and meaning of Jewish theater.

Stalin Thought of You

A portrait of 105-year-old Russian political cartoonist Boris Efimov, whose pointed caricatures filled the pages of satirical magazines from Lenin’s time to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union, Kevin McNeer’s fascinating documentary relates the riveting tale of Efimov’s relationship with brutal dictator Josef Stalin and the tragic fall of his beloved brother, Mikhail. A dizzying, deeply moving chronicle of two siblings and one dictator whose crossed paths illuminate the story of a nation.

The Stamp Thief

Part mystery story and part comedic heist, “The Stamp Thief” is the surprising tale of how Gary, a risk-averse father of four and an original “Seinfeld” writer/producer, drops everything, enlists the help of a team of adventurous friends and filmmakers, and flies halfway around the world to attempt to find and rescue a priceless stamp collections collection the Nazi stole from concentration camp victims, buried somewhere in Poland.

The Stamp Thief

Part detective story, part heist film, The Stamp Thief investigates the tale of a Nazi who stole priceless stamp collections from Jews, then buried them in Poland—never to return.

Standing Silent

Standing Silent profiles the heroic efforts of Phil Jacobs, a reporter for the Baltimore Jewish Times, as he relentlessly pursues sexual predators, including prominent rabbis and community leaders, in Baltimore’s insular Orthodox Jewish community. However, rather than being celebrated for his efforts, Jacobs, an observant Jew, instead faces ostracism from a community more intent on shielding itself from external scrutiny than on protecting its young people from abuse.

Standing Up, Falling Down

An unlikely, multigenerational friendship between a failed comedian and a charming, alcoholic dermatologist helps both confront long-simmering regrets in this warm-hearted buddy comedy.

Starfish, The

The Starfish is the true story of a German-Jewish boy whose life was forever altered at the age of 10, when his parents sent him and his two older sisters to live with non-Jewish families in Sweden to escape Nazi persecution. After living in Sweden for two years, Herb Gildin and his sisters journeyed across Russia and the Pacific to be reunited with their parents as refugees in America. Focused on building his lighting business rather than dwelling on his past, decades went by before Herb told his wife and children about his childhood, resulting in one last journey back to Sweden to reunite with the remaining family members who had taken him in 60 years earlier.

Steal This Story, Please!

In an era of corporate news media consolidation, where divisive voices incite racial violence and entertainment trumps facts, Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! take us to the frontlines in the battle for truth and independence in journalism in this feature documentary.

Steve Pressman: Holy Silence

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?

Still (Stille)

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A Still Small Voice

This documentary that centers on an aspiring chaplain in a New York hospital is a meditation on faith, loss and professional sustainability that finds hope and meaning in seemingly hopeless situations.

A Still Small Voice

An aspiring hospital chaplain begins a yearlong residency in spiritual care, only to discover that to successfully tend to her patients, she must look deep within herself.

The Story of Esther

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Strange Fruit

This film explores the history and legacy of the song of the same name- written in the 1930's by a Jewish Bronx schoolteacher and recorded by Billie Holiday- as a vehicle for a deeper look at black-Jewish relations.

Strangers No More

It’s impossible not to be profoundly moved by this Academy Award–winning documentary about Tel Aviv’s Bialik-Rogozin School, a K-12 public school that has opened its doors to students from 48 different countries, including many refugees escaping nightmarish pasts. The film is a tribute to the school’s bighearted teachers and heroic principal who work small miracles transforming vulnerable, traumatized youth into happy and confident individuals.

Streit's: Matzo and the American Dream

Just as its iconic pink box has graced Passover seder tables for generations of American Jews, so, too, Streit’s matzo factory has stood for some 80 years on the Lower East Side. For many Jews, a family business has been a way to make a living and a way to ensure that the next generation could do better. This is all challenged by the need for modernity, the pressures of foreign competition and enticing real estate offers. —Sara L. Rubin

Sturgeon Queens

What do Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Morley Safer have in common? They each are passionate about their love for the smoked fish at Russ's Daughters. This venerable establishment has been around for 100 years, and in this humorous, heartfelt and mouthwatering documentary we meet the delightful 100-year-old and 92-year-old daughters of the store’s name and the sturgeon queens of the title. Preceded by Salomea’s Nose.

Sukkah City

In September 2010 New Yorkers were delighted by the overnight appearance of a temporary sukkah city erected in Union Square. These were the winning entrants from a global architectural competition designed to reimagine the humble sukkah. Featuring luminaries such as Michael Arad, Paul Goldberger and Maira Kalman, Sukkah City chronicles the process of judging the entrants and the drama that ensued as the winning teams shifted from concept to construction.

Sulam

When an immigrant teen must help her mom before a school exam, tensions of belonging in a new country bubble to the surface.

Summer

Two teenage girls in a Hasidic sleep-a-way camp who, despite their every effort to maintain their purity, explore a forbidden book which leads them to a sexual awakening neither of them are prepared to encounter.

Sunset Story

New friends Irja and Lucille inspire each other, gossip, offer political analysis and share the pleasures of being able to do the simple tasks of life. Irja Lloyd, 81, and Lucille Alpert, 95, have met at an unusual time in their lives and in an unusual place: Sunset Hall, a Los Angeles retirement home for political radicals. Sunset Story is at its feisty heart a tender buddy movie with a narrative arc to be envied by the best dramatic writers.

Supergirl

Adolescence is hard enough without having to worry about maintaining a world record. But for Naomi Kutin, shopping for a bat mitzvah dress, keeping up with homework and lifting nearly three times her weight is just another day. What started as a hobby turned awe-inspiring when Naomi set a world record in powerlifting. But as the young Orthodox Jewish girl approaches adolescence, the competition is getting fierce and unexpected health issues may jeopardize her future.

Surrender

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Surviving Hitler: A Love Story

A love story for the ages filled with high drama and intrigue, this is no Hollywood movie but a riveting documentary about two sweethearts in the German resistance involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler.

Sweater

Corey's day couldn't be worse. Then he gets a free coffee.

Sweet Lorraine

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The Sweetest Sound

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