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Arab Labor: Season 3

Arab Labor: Season 3

This hilarious Israeli sitcom is known for parodies of Israeli and Palestinian stereotypes alike. Now it lampoons itself! Protagonist Amjad enlists in Israeli reality TV’s Big Brother to force dialogue about coexistence into the mainstream, only to discover that some things are better left unsaid. Meanwhile, society may not be ready for the birth of his friend’s interfaith baby. Prepare to stir the pot with all-new episodes from Season 3. [MINIGUIDE 70/70]

Arab Labor: Season 4

Arab Labor: Season 4

The Alian family returns in an all-new season of the hilariously provocative hit series Arab Labor. In Season 4, Amjad is shocked to find out that his wife Bushra is pregnant. He is mistaken for the leader of an Israeli social protest movement and becomes a member of the Knesset. Writer/creator Sayed Kashua (SFJFF Freedom of Expression Award 2010) puts the issues front and center, finding humor in the most unlikely places.

After his marriage to a Jewish Israeli woman dissolves, Yosef returns to his mother’s home in a Druze village with his two teenagers in tow. Director Adi Adwan offers an intimate glimpse into the type of insular, traditional community he grew up in. For the Druze, Yosef’s transgression is grave, and the reaction to his arrival is chilly at best. As the villagers’ anger flares up, Arabani builds to a dramatic crescendo.

Two runaway teenage girls hitchhike through small-town Israel to a Northern Jewish sanctum in pursuit of spiritual redemption. Along the way, they’re confronted with the complexities of their relationship.

About This Film

In this whimsical romantic comedy, Arlo and Julie are a young couple adrift in Austin, whose lives are upended when Julie starts to receive mysterious packages in the mail. Each one contains more pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle. As they try to solve the mystery, they descend into an obsession that threatens to change everything. The result is an uplifting, surprisingly moving exploration of art and history, love, trust and faith. preceded by A Knock at the Door

The Armor of Light

The Armor of Light

In her breathtaking directorial debut, Abigail Disney follows evangelical minister Rob Schenck, an anti-abortion activist—and former Jew—as he examines whether it is possible to be pro-gun and pro-life. He teams with Lucy McBath, the mother of Jordan Davis, an unarmed teenager murdered in Florida whose case has become a landmark in the fight against stand-your-ground laws. Disney artfully paces the story to show a polarized topic in a fresh light.

Robert Guédiguian’s lush historical drama bases itself on a largely overlooked cell of French Resistance fighters: refugees of the anti-fascist fight throughout Europe, mostly Jews and communists, led by French Armenian poet Missak Manouchian. With the Gestapo closing in, we are drawn into the work and personal lives of a circle of fearless, brazen and idealistic young men and women, their varying backgrounds insignificant beside a mutual refusal to back down to injustice.

Army of Lovers in the Holy Land

Army of Lovers in the Holy Land

Army of Lovers is a Swedish pop-dance band that has enjoyed a string of European hits in the 1990s, hits that are based on kitsch lyrics, high camp videos, and a libertine philosophy.This documentary film takes a fun and revealing look at one of Europe's most outrageous acts, the band's enduring popularity in Israel, and the vocalist's surprising decision to move to Israel, a decision that brings about their first-ever concert in the Holy Land.

Arna's Children

Arna's Children

Arna Mer Khamis, an Israeli Jew, founded a children’s theatre workshop in the West Bank town of Jenin. Under her watchful and encouraging eyes, Palestinian kids discovered their inner playwrights and actors despite the escalating tension in Jenin. Shot over a 13-year period, this film--much like Michael Apted’s 7 Up documentaries--captures the lives of Arna’s children over time while drawing the viewer into their emotional, physical and political development.

Occupation and creation; a story deconstructing reality, telling a tale about a different Middle East. In an alternative reality, the Palestinian army is the occupier, and Palestinian directors make films to deal with their own trauma.[followed by Censored Voices]

About This Film

Art and Heart: The World of Isaiah Sheffer

Art and Heart: The World of Isaiah Sheffer

Art and Heart, Catherine Tambini’s spirited documentary celebrates the life of Isaiah Sheffer, the founding artistic director of Symphony Space and host of Selected Shorts on public radio who inspired everyone from Leonard Nimoy to Stephen Colbert. Paired with Making Morning Star. Academy Award–nominated filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s intimate documentary relates the creation of Morning Star, a new opera by composer Ricky Ian Gordon as he brings 11 years of ideation to life. —Neha TalrejaPreceded by Making Morning Star

A breathtaking 18th century painting on a crumbling wall ignites a noirish mystery and inspires one woman to delve into family secrets, long-buried memories, and perhaps even WWII-era government cover-ups. Dashing around Paris in her trenchcoat and fedora, Esther whispers in dark rooms, forges signatures and draws long, thoughtful puffs on cigarettes (though this may be more French than noir) in her journey to recover family paintings presumably stolen by Nazis.

The Art of Shimon Attie

The Art of Shimon Attie

About This Film

The Art of Spiegelman

The Art of Spiegelman

In 1991 Art Spiegelman published his Pulitzer Prize–winning graphic novel, Maus. Groundbreaking in both style and form, the emotionally raw Maus portrays the Holocaust with Jews as mice and the Germans as cats. This fascinating doc traces Spiegelman’s journey from his childhood obsession with all things comic to his resurgence with the outrageous covers he created for the New Yorker. With short Every Tuesday: A Portrait of the New Yorker Cartoonists.

The Artichoke Season

The Artichoke Season

After her father leaves home, 10-year-old Rosalie, who lives in a Jerusalem slum, turns to fantasy-like memories from her childhood.

The Artist's Daughter

The Artist's Daughter

Filmmaker Margarita Linton hopes that her estranged father’s newest exhibition of paintings will serve as the catalyst for their reconnection, but as his excuses mount she resolves to tell her story regardless, resulting in an inspired turn of events.

An epic story of love lost and found. Arye (Polish actor Jerzy Stuhr, renowned from the films of Wajda and Kieslowski) is a Moscow cardiologist who dwells on his boyhood spent hidden in Lithuania during World War II. Diagnosed with cancer, he travels to Israel to find Sonya, with whom he shared first love as well as their attic hiding place.

As I AM: The Life and Times of DJ AM

As I AM: The Life and Times of DJ AM

Forget whatever you’ve heard about the life and death of Philadelphia-born DJ AM (born Adam Goldstein), the superstar club deejay who attained rock star status and survived a fiery plane crash only to die a short time later of a drug overdose at the age of 36. Director Kevin Kerslake’s haunting and heartbreaking portrait intimately conveys the brief life of an obsessive sonic genius for whom music, fame and love were tragically not enough.

As If It Were Yesterday

As If It Were Yesterday

About This Film

About This Film

ASESINO is about Jews who “disappeared” under Argentina’s former military Junta; of the 30,000 people who disappeared, 3,000 were Jews. The film alleges that Israel, ignoring Argentina’s human rights violations, sold weapons to the Junta. THUNDER IN GUYANA tells the inspiring story of Janet Rosenberg Jagan, a Jewish woman from Chicago who became the President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana.

Ashcan: The Secret Prison (Free Screening)

Ashcan: The Secret Prison (Free Screening)

The little-known, unconventionally told story of a secret Allied prison for top former Nazis in Luxembourg.

Ashkenaz, a pithy but panoramic view of Israel’s “white” Jews, undermines any preconceived notions of Jewish ethnicity. Director Rachel Leah Jones, a Berkeley native, flits from experts and scholars to just plain folks to reveal a nonhomogeneous Ashkenazi population seen through the eyes of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Israelis. It’s a fascinating study in diversity within a single word.

Pianist Hershey Felder and a group of his students travel to Poland to retrace the steps of holocaust survivor Eva Libitzky and perform music inspired by her story.

At Home in Utopia

At Home in Utopia

“The Coops,” which housed 1,200 pioneering families in cooperative Bronx apartment complexes, symbolized an experiment in justice and equality from 1926 through the 1950s. This affectionate documentary portrays those who embraced communist, socialist and union movements from their “fortress of the working class.” It mixes political, social and economic gravity with humor, contemporary interviews with archival black & white footage, and puts human faces on a history that’s a legacy for many American Jews.

At the Crossroads: Jews in Eastern Europe Today

At the Crossroads: Jews in Eastern Europe Today

About This Film

About This Film

By all appearances Palestinian-Israeli surgeon Amin Jaafari (Ali Suliman, Lemon Tree, Paradise Now) has it all. As an admired and respected member of his profession he has carved a space for himself and his wife Sihem at the crossroads of two troubled societies. Jaafari’s world is abruptly shattered when Sihem goes missing in a Tel Aviv suicide bombing. As Israeli police evidence mounts, it appears that Sihem could have been responsible.

Au Revoir Les Enfants

Au Revoir Les Enfants

About This Film

Against all odds, an auctioneer comes across a missing 1939 Egon Schiele masterpiece but after a brief investigation he realizes that it is a looted work of art.

About This Film

Fifteen-year-old Audrie Pott in Saratoga, California, and 14-year-old Daisy Coleman in Maryville, Missouri never met. What connects them is the sexual violence and humiliation they suffered in unrelated incidents from groups of boys who got them drunk, assaulted them and posted their actions on the internet. Thanks to probing interviews with strikingly perceptive subjects, this film provides unflinching insight into the entitlement that leads to the condoning of sexual violence. —Zoe PollakScreened at 2016 Sundance Film Festival

The Auschwitz Bagel

The Auschwitz Bagel

Three siblings are forced to reckon with their father’s new sexuality and familial dysfunction at a particularly awkward time—their great aunt’s funeral. Playing as part of Eat Up! Short & Sweet Festival Shorts Program

Auschwitz On My Mind

Auschwitz On My Mind

While on a school trip to Poland to visit concentration camps, an Israeli teen has more than history on his mind. He wants to get laid. As sparks start to fly between two horny teens they find themselves torn between the tragic past and their obsession with sex in the most unlikely of places.

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