Film Archive | Jewish Film Institute

Exhibition Series

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Filtered By: USA Clear All

Swim Little Fish Swim

Idealistic musician Leeward and his breadwinner wife Mary share a tiny New York apartment where they raise their three-year-old daughter. When aspiring young French artist Lilas crashes on their couch and strikes a chord with at-sea Leeward, the couple’s ideological conflicts come into sharper focus. Writer/directors Ruben Amar and Lola Bessis’s first feature (and her acting debut as Lilas) is a heartfelt film about the struggle between creativity and adulthood.

Swipe NYC

In her latest short film, Lisa Edelstein portrays the hysterical sexual (mis)adventures of post-divorce dating. Set in Brooklyn, Edelstein plays Syd, an unlucky real estate agent and empty nester looking for love. Syd’s hilarious and surprising escapades, including a date with Richard Schiff (The Good Doctor), are not to be missed.

The Tale of the Goat

A deceptively simple animated retelling of S. Y. Agnon’s bleak fable of an elderly father, a feckless son and a wandering goat.

The Talent Given Us

Family road trips should be illegal. But then you would miss out on one of the wackiest, fun-house-mirrored, rollicking rides of your life with this family, their meshugas flapping from their mini-van like so many damp bathing suits. Sundance hit The Talent Given Us is Wagner’s narrative feature film about a New York Jewish family, which happens to star his New York Jewish family.

Tangled Roots

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Tears Tears Only Tears

A young woman and her ex-lover embark on a road trip to euthanize her beloved dog. Along the way, they confront buried emotions, irreversible choices, and realizations that ultimately set them both free.

Tell Me a Riddle

This seldom seen gem was not only the debut directorial feature of this year’s Freedom of Expression Award honoree Lee Grant but also showcased at the first SFJFF in 1981. Oscar winning screen legends Melvyn Douglas (Being There) and Lila Kedrova (Zorba the Greek) are an elderly Jewish émigré couple who try to rekindle their troubled marriage by taking a road trip, ending up in glorious late-1970s San Francisco.

Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press

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Ten for Grandpa

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Terezin Diary

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Tevye

Yiddish Art Theater’s Maurice Schwartz adapted, directed and stars in this classic 1939 Yiddish melodrama shot in New Jersey, based on the Sholem Aleichem stories that would later inspire Fiddler on the Roof. Protagonist Tevye the Milkman struggles to uphold tradition in the face of social tumult, including the scandalous elopement of his daughter Chava with the gentile Fyedka. The dialogues will delight anyone with an affinity for Yiddish language and culture.

Thank You and Goodnight

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Thanks, Babs!

Meet Babs, an optimistic octogenarian speed racing through life, one five-year plan at a time.

That's How You Make a Torah

Finally in 2007, Jen Taylor Friedman became the first woman known in history to scribe a Torah. Meet Taylor Friedman and fellow trailblazing scribe Rabbi Linda Motzkin, who creates kosher parchment in her backyard.

The Eighth Day

Parents to a baby boy, a young gay Jewish couple must share they're not planning to circumcise the baby.

The Red Sea Diving Resort | SFJFF39's CLOSING NIGHT FILM

Inspired by one of the most remarkable true life rescue missions ever, The Red Sea Diving Resort is the incredible story of a group of international agents and brave Ethiopians who in the early 80s used a deserted holiday retreat in Sudan as a front to smuggle thousands of refugees to Israel. Chris Evans (Captain America, Avengers) plays Ari Levinson, the Mossad agent who leads the mission together with courageous local Kabede Bimro, played by Michael Kenneth Williams (The Wire, Boardwalk Empire). Posed as naive European entrepreneurs, the team he leads take advantage of the Sudanese government’s interest in expanding its feeble Ministry of Tourism to purchase a strategically located property along the Red Sea. Their plans are thrown for a loop, however, when real tourists begin arriving, expecting service.

The Way We Were

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Theo Rigby: Si Pudiera Quedarme / If I Could Stay

When undocumented mothers Jeanette and Ingrid face deportation and separation from their young children, they and their communities rally support to keep them safe despite the risks. A story of courage and allyship, Si Pudiera Quedarme is a timely look at the transformative power of communities uniting for justice.

Theodore Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom Aleichem

The lives of two beloved Jewish icons are woven together in this enchanting documentary: Sholem Aleichem, the great Jewish storyteller, and Theodore Bikel, troubadour and actor, who has portrayed Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof (based on Sholem Aleichem’s stories) countless times. Bikel is joined by Alan Alda, Fyvush Finkel and Sholem Aleichem’s 102-year-old granddaughter Bel Kaufman. Screening followed by a brief performance and Q&A with Theodore Bikel.

There Are Jews Here

This quirky and poignant documentary examines the challenges of Jewish life in small-town America. Focusing on four tiny Jewish communities, directors Brad Lichtenstein and Morgan Elise Johnson examine in intimate detail what happens to a congregation when there are scarcely enough Jews left to form a quorum for religious activities, much less to maintain a vibrant community. An unusual and intriguing look at a segment of American Jewish life that is rarely examined. —Seth Barron

They Ain't Ready For Me | 12pm pst

They Ain’t Ready For Me is the story of Tamar Manasseh, the African American rabbinical student who is leading the fight against senseless killings on the south side of Chicago. The film explores the challenges and motivations of this fearless community leader as she works to prevent more people from being killed by gun violence.

This Is Not Erotica

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This is Personal

Director Amy Berg ('An Open Secret') turns the spotlight on the Women's March, especially co-founder Tamika Mallory - whose support of Louis Farrakhan has generated so much controversy - in this panoramic documentary.

Those People

The lives, loves, scandals and fixations of a tight-knit group of high society Manhattan youth are dissected with humor and compassion in this sexy drama from first-time feature director Joey Kuhn. The story centers on Charlie, a struggling young artist, whose loyalty to—and longtime crush on—his dashing best friend Sebastian are challenged when Sebastian’s swindling father is jailed and Charlie starts falling in love with someone else.

Those Who Heard and Those Who Saw

In 1940, Jewish refugees who had fled to the United Kingdom were sent to work in prison camps in Canada. Through a large archive of never-released audio interviews, "Those Who Heard and Those Who Saw" considers how their experiences connect to those of contemporary Syrian refugees in Canada.

A Thousand Kisses

The film tells the story of a young Jewish couple in Berlin who, separated by the fear of prosecution in 1933 Nazi Germany, make plans to reunite on the safe tropical shores of Brazil.

Three Kisses

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Three Promises

While the Israeli army retaliates against the Second Intifada in the West Bank, a mother films her family’s daily life, punctuated by time spent sheltering in the basement.

Thunder In Guyana

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Tiger Eyes

The first of Judy Blume’s books to be translated to film, Tiger Eyes stars Willa Holland (Gossip Girl, The O.C.) as a teenager grappling with the sudden loss of her father. Crippled by grief, her mom moves the family to New Mexico to stay with her sister. Shell-shocked and culture-shocked, Davey befriends a wise, sexy Native American young man who helps her through this difficult time. Judy Blume in person. [MINIGUIDE 71/70]

Tiger Within

The unlikely friendship between Samuel, an elderly, lonely Holocaust survivor, and Casey, an angry 14-year-old runaway is the premise of this inspiring, redemptive story about the power of forgiveness and unconditional love to transform lives and overcome ignorance, fear, and hate.

Timbrels and Torahs

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Time of Renewal

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To Be or Not To Be

Ernst Lubitsch’s scandalous, irreverent farce (1942) in which a Polish theatre troupe, headed by Jack Benny and Carole Lombard, gets embroiled in an espionage caper and tries to foil the Führer himself. Held to be in poor taste at its wartime premiere, today it is a standout example of how ridicule can sometimes be deadly serious.

To Dust

CENTERPIECE NARRATIVE: A black comedy about a Hasidic cantor (Géza Röhrig) and biology professor (Matthew Broderick) obsessed with death.

Toby Freilich: Maintenance Artist

What happens when high art meet trash? Watch this first feature documentary about Mierle Laderman Ukeles, globally-renowned artist-in-residence at NYC’s Sanitation Department. Religiously observant, Ukeles’ humanistic approach to Jewish tradition inspires her largely secular work.

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