Film Archive | Jewish Film Institute

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L'Chayim, Comrade Stalin

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Leah Galant: Landscapes of Memory

Interweaving the stories of a Holocaust-survivor descendant, a Nazi-descendant historian, Palestinian artists in exile, and the filmmaker's own reckoning with her father’s ALS, "Landscapes of Memory" explores the complexities of Holocaust remembrance and the uses and abuses of memory culture.

Leaving Home

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Lebanon Dream

Samir Farhat is a successful Lebanese businessman and war profiteer who imported goods from Israel into Southern Lebanon during Israel’s 18-year foray there. Farhat, a compelling modern-day Mother Courage, doesn’t stop to think about morality in his quest for survival and wealth. Preceded by Borders, Nurit Kedar’s riveting documentary that puts a human face on the neighbors living along Israel's 1,171 kilometers of borders.

Left On Purpose

Justin Schein originally set out to make a standard documentary on former Yippie activist Mayer Vishner. But in the middle of shooting, Vishner made it clear he had a different plan. The film ends with his last political act: his exit from this world. Schein’s dilemma becomes the film’s new narrative, as he goes from documentarian to friend to one of Vishner’s last caretakers, ultimately making him complicit in the death of his subject. —Neha TalrejaWinner of the Audience Award at DOC NYC Festival 2015.

The Legend of Juan Jose Mundo

It’s 1984 in suburban New York and Julie Gornick is hosting a charismatic, larger-than-life Spanish exchange student. As he starts hooking up with the girls in her class, Julie falls in love with him. Or what she thinks is love.

Leigh Jurecka: A Night at the Stone Burlesk

When a filmmaker marries a former child magician, she finds herself entering an eccentric family of performers and illusionists.

Leona

A young Jewish woman from Mexico City finds herself torn between her family and her forbidden love with a non-Jewish man.

Lepke

Tony Curtis is mesmerizing as Louis “Lepke” Buchalter in Menahem Golan’s epic drama about the feared leader of Murder, Incorporated. The film reads like a who’s who of New York Jewish gangsters: Dutch Schultz, Gurrah Shapiro, Mendy Weiss, Kid “Twist” Reles and their nemesis, Thomas Dewey. Lepke provides a unique window into the Jewish immigrant experience in the trajectory of a man driven to achieve one version of the American dream.

Les Affinités Recouvrées

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The Lesson

At the age of 14 every school child in Germany is taught about the atrocities that occurred under Nazi rule. Filmmaker Elena Horn returns to her small hometown in rural Germany to follow four children as they first learn about the Holocaust.

The Lesson

Layla is an Egyptian-born Muslim who immigrated to Israel in 1968. She now lives in Jerusalem, cut off from her siblings across the border and from her children, who have integrated into Israeli life. Layla has lost much, but now harbors a simple dream: To obtain a driver’s license. She reveals fragments of her life story to her sympathetic driving instructor and her free-spirited daughter.

Let Ye Inherit

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Let's Dance!

This vibrant documentary tells the fascinating story of Israel’s innovative dance history, bringing its world-renowned dance talent to center stage. Through insightful interviews with leading choreographers, Let’s Dance! traces Israeli dance back to its roots—from the hora circles of the kibbutz fields to the influences of Martha Graham and the avant-garde—and explores how dance has become a vital form of expression in Israel today. Packed with archival footage, unforgettable performances and an infectious soundtrack, Let’s Dance! will make you want to get up and . . . dance!

Let's Fall in Love: A Singles Weekend at the Concord Hotel

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A Letter to David

A cinematic letter to director Tom Shoval’s friend David Cunio, who was abducted on October 7, using echoes from their prior collaboration on Youth.

A Letter to Harvey Milk: Harry Weinberg's Notebook

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A Letter Without Words

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Levinsky Park

Over the past five years, tens of thousands of refugees from sub-Saharan Africa have sought relief and safety in Israel only to find a society bitterly divided on how to treat them. Filmmaker Beth Toni Kruvant examines Israel’s moral obligation to extend aid and comfort to the refugees and the role that race and religion play in the willingness of a community to accept them in their midst.

Lies in the Closet

A captivating documentary about a 22-year old who steals money from his parents and forges documents for his gender reassignment surgery in Thailand.

Life According to Agfa

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Life According to Sam

The clock is ticking for all of us, but it is ticking faster for Sam Bern. Sam has progeria, an extremely rare age-accelerating disease. When we first meet Sam, he is 13 years old but looks 70. He is a precocious middle school student interested in music and sports, though his ability to participate is limited by his fragile body. Fortunately, Sam’s parents are both doctors. His mom, Dr. Leslie Gordon, is a genetic researcher and is on a crusade to get approval of a drug that will extend Sam’s life as well as those of other children with the disease beyond the average life expectancy of 13–14 years. It is a race against time for Gordon to get her drug trial results published in a reputable medical journal. Sam talks about his mortality but does so with a lack of anger or self pity. Yet like any teenager he has goals for himself, the most pressing of which is to play drums in his high school marching band. Academy Award–winning directors Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine have created an emotionally uplifting chronicle of determination and optimism in the face of terrible odds with Sam being one of the most inspirational documentary subjects in recent memory.

The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg

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A Life Apart: Hasidism in America

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Life as a Rumor

Sixty-five-year-old Assi Dayan, the son of Israeli general Moshe Dayan, narrates his fascinating life in this autobiographical documentary that intertwines the trials of war with the struggles of founding fathers and rebellious sons. From the hulking presence of his father to his twisting career path during which he earned nine Israeli Oscars, Assi Dayan tells his no-holds-barred tale with candor and crispness. Dayan passed away this year, but his memory remains indelible.

A Life in Dirty Movies

A Life in Dirty Movies is an affectionate documentary about legendary sexploitation director Joe Sarno, “the Ingmar Bergman of 42nd Street,” and his loyal wife and collaborator Peggy. The film follows the Sarnos for a year, as 88-year-old Joe struggles to get a new film project off the ground. The film’s intimate perspective reveals a filmmaker’s golden years and his hope for renewed relevance. With John Waters.

Life in Stills

Music Man Murray: 50Approaching 90, Murray Gershenz is ready for a career change. Since 1962 the former cantor has run a Los Angeles record shop, accumulating a staggering 300,000 albums. Now having found some success as a character actor (The Hangover, House), Murray seeks a buyer for his store in this whimsical documentary. Joshua Moore[CATALOG 155/160 + 51/50]Preceded by Music Man MurrayTamar Tal’s prize-winning documentary tells the story of 96-year-old Miriam, the remarkable widow of Czech-born Israeli photographer Rudi Weissenstein, as she and her grandson Ben defend their Tel Aviv photo studio from demolition. While it reveals a separate family tragedy tied to Miriam’s daughter, Ben’s mother, the movie ultimately becomes a love story spanning three generations. Moving montages of Weissenstein’s prints also eloquently depict Israel’s earliest years. [MINIGUIDE 70/70]

Life is Too Long

What do you get when you cross a screwball comedy with an existential crisis? A new Dani Levy movie! Meet Alfi Seliger, a nebbish hypochondriac filmmaker trying to get back in the game, even with a cheating wife, disrespectful kids and a psychiatrist who thinks he should end it all. But is Alfi’s hapless life one big cosmic joke? This mind-bending romp falls somewhere between Fellini's 8 1/2 and Woody Allen's Stardust Memories—only goofier.

The Life of the Jews in Palestine

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Lifetime Guarantee: Phranc's Adventures in Plastic

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The Light Ahead

Impoverished couple Fishke (David Opatoshu, Exodus) and Hodel (Helen Beverley, Green Fields) dream of life in the big city of Odessa free from the shtetl’s poverty, corruption, and stifling old-world prejudices. The benevolent and enlightened bookseller Mendele (Isidore Cashier as Mendele Mokher Sforim) takes them under his wing. One of the most important films in NCJF’s archive collection, The Light Ahead is arguably the finest of the four Yiddish films directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Made on the eve of World War II, the film is at once romantic, expressionist, and painfully conscious of the danger about to engulf European Jew. The shtetl denizens’ embrace of superstition over science and modernity amidst a cholera outbreak makes The Light Ahead especially poignant for contemporary audiences. The film’s climax is a mageyfe khasene (plague wedding), a folk ritual believed to ward off disease.

The Light Ahead (Castro)

Recently restored by the National Center for Jewish Film, A Light Ahead is a forgotten Yiddish classic by B-movie maverick Edgar G. Ulmer (The Black Cat, Detour). At once a touching comedic drama and pointed social critique, the film follows Fishke and Hodel, a young disabled couple, as they strive to escape the oppressive disease and poverty of their shtetl.

Lights, Camera, Take Action Panel

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Like A Bride (Novia Que te Vea)

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Like Father Like Clown

When the Simpsons have Krusty the Clown over for dinner, he says grace in Hebrew and laments his estrangement from his father, Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky (voiced by Jackie Mason). Lisa and Bart try repeatedly to reunite them, going so far as to dress Bart as an Orthodox Jew.

Like the Sea and its Waves

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