Film Archive | Jewish Film Institute

Exhibition Series

2020 Filmmakers in Residence
2020 JFI Completion Grants
2021 Filmmakers in Residence
2021 JFI Completion Grants
2022 Filmmakers in Residence
2022 JFI Completion Grants
2023 Filmmakers in Residence
2023 JFI Completion Grants
2024 Filmmakers in Residence
2024 JFI Completion Grants
2025 Filmmakers in Residence
2025 JFI Completion Grants
2026 Filmmakers in Residence
2026 JFI Completion Grants
Cinegogue Summer Days
JFI Filmmakers in Residence
JFI/JSP Momentum Awards
Pre-2020 Filmmaker In Residence
SFJFF 1981
SFJFF 1982
SFJFF 1983
SFJFF 1984
SFJFF 1985
SFJFF 1986
SFJFF 1987
SFJFF 1988
SFJFF 1989
SFJFF 1990
SFJFF 1991
SFJFF 1992
SFJFF 1993
SFJFF 1994
SFJFF 1995
SFJFF 1996
SFJFF 1997
SFJFF 1998
SFJFF 1999
SFJFF 2000
SFJFF 2001
SFJFF 2002
SFJFF 2003
SFJFF 2004
SFJFF 2005
SFJFF 2006
SFJFF 2007
SFJFF 2008
SFJFF 2009
SFJFF 2010
SFJFF 2011
SFJFF 2012
SFJFF 2013
SFJFF 2014
SFJFF 2015
SFJFF 2016
SFJFF 2017
SFJFF 2018
SFJFF 2019
SFJFF 2021
SFJFF 2023
SFJFF 2024
SFJFF 2025
SFJFF 2026
SFJFF Madrid
SFJFF Moscow
WinterFest 2019
WinterFest 2026

Country

Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belarus
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
Chile
China
Colombia
Cuba
Cyprus
Czechia
Czechoslovakia
Denmark
Egypt
Ethiopia
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
India
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Latvia
Lebanon
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Mali
Mexico
Morocco
Netherlands
Norway
Palestine
Palestinian Territories
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Russia
Slovakia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Tunisia
Turkey
Uganda
Ukraine
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay
USA
Uzbekistan
Venezuela

Language

Albanian
Amharic
Arabic
Bambara
Berber
Bosnian
Bulgarian
Cambodian
Cameroonian
Catalan
Chinese
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
Farsi
French
Georgian
German
Gikuyu
Greek
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Icelandic
Igbo
Italian
Japanese
Kazakh
Ladino
Latvian
Lithuanian
Mandarin
Moroccan
Norwegian
Patois
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Romanian
Romany
Russian
Silent
Silent Film w/ English Intertitles
Slovak
Spanish
Swahili
Swedish
Tagalog
Thai
Tigrinya
Turkish
Ukrainian
Yiddish
Zaghawan

Film Type

Animation
Documentary
Episodic
Experimental
Feature
Narrative
Short
Shorts Program
Television Series

Street Under Fire

About This Film

Streets of Yesterday

About This Film

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

Striplife

Striplife takes you to the Gaza Strip to experience small moments of daily life. Five Italian filmmakers gained extraordinary access to fishermen, a farmer, a newswoman, a Gaza parkour team, a photographer, a sheepherder and an aging professional soccer player. Like a classic observational documentary, this quiet but powerful film focuses on the ordinary lives of real people in Gaza rather than the more notorious conflicts we are normally accustomed to hearing about. Preceded by Deserted

Studio Varouj

About This Film

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.

The Substitute

The Substitute, Talya Lavie’s narrative short about two women in the Israeli army,took the Audience Award at the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival.

Subte-Polska

Tadeusz Goldberg is having a midlife crisis . . . at the age of 90. He misses the loves of his youth and hates the libido-suppressing medication he must take to avoid memory loss and confusion. A Polish communist who fought against Franco in Spain, he later fled to exile in Buenos Aires, and became an adored chess champion. Defying clueless doctors and relatives, Tadeusz wonders if he can ever recapture the romance of his youth.

The Suitcase

A French filmmaker uses family photos and archival images to send a message to her long-deceased grandmother in an attempt to establish her own path toward healing.

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.

The Summer of Aviya

About This Film

Summer Vacation

Sun, beach, bungalows and a dreamy island retreat add up to the perfect family vacation. But innocent childish games in the sand and an accidental savior turn this getaway into a series of revelations of family secrets and an unexpected love triangle. Starring Yiftach Klein (Fill the Void).

Sumud (Stick to the Land)

About This Film

Sun Bay

Shadowed by the grand hotels of Eilat lies a hidden trailer park known as Sun Bay. Against the uncertainty surrounding the site, its residents attempt to reconcile the tension between their present loneliness and the lives they left behind.

Sunflowers

About This Film

Sunset

About This Film

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.

Super Women

This intriguing and layered observational documentary tells the interwoven stories of a group of women, mostly Russian immigrants, who work the same shift as cashiers in an Israeli supermarket. With outstanding cinematography and intimate access, it goes behind the scenes of the market. On their smoke breaks, the women provide mutual support for each other in their ongoing struggles with family, relationships, finances and poor working conditions.

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

About This Film

Surrogate

This mesmerizing drama tells the story of Eli, a psychologically damaged 32-year-old incapable of physical touch, and Hagar, the surrogate assigned by Eli’s therapist to help him practice emotional and sexual intimacy. During the duo’s weekly sessions, Eli begins to process his stunted familial relationships and tackle crushing secrets. Amir Wolf (Eli) and Lana Ettinger (Hagar) are pitch-perfect as two strangers who meet under artificial circumstances to create a life-changing connection.

Survival in Sarajevo: How a Jewish Community Came to the Aid of Its City

About This Film

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.

Swallows Never Die in Jerusalem

About This Film

Sweater

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

Sweet Lorraine

About This Film

Sweet Mud

One of the year’s most accomplished and celebrated international dramas, Sweet Mud peels back the romantic mythology surrounding communal life on an Israeli kibbutz to tell a personal, poignant story of thwarted love, adolescent awakening and human failings. It is 1974, and 12-year-old Dvir must care for his emotionally fragile mother. When her much-rumored boyfriend appears from Switzerland, things begin to look up, but a series of small but earthshaking conflicts will test the nascent family as well as the ability of the kibbutz to take care of its most vulnerable members. Winner, Sundance Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema.

The Sweetest Sound

About This Film

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.

TABOO - Amos Guttman

This insightful, illuminating documentary chronicles the life and work of Amos Guttman, a rebellious filmmaker credited with making the first queer Israeli feature film.

Take Now Your Son

About This Film

The Tale of Nicolai & The Law of Return

Israeli filmmaker David Ofek uses the actual persons involved to tell the story of a Romanian immigrant’s transition in status from exploited guest worker to full citizenship for him and his Christian family after he rediscovers his Jewish roots. The documentary cheekily underscores its unsettling contradictions by unfolding like a traditional Jewish fable, while broaching serious questions about the nature of Israel as a Jewish state and a democracy.

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.

...