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Filtered By: Clear All

Free Men

An Algerian emigrant in Paris during World War II is inspired to join the French Resistance when he becomes friends with a Jewish man.

The Freedom to Marry

What’s the definition of a mensch? After watching this inspiring documentary, you’ll have a two-word answer: Evan Wolfson. Founder of the advocacy group Freedom to Marry and the acknowledged “godfather” of the marriage equality movement, Wolfson’s 30-year struggle to bring about justice for millions of gays and lesbians is the heart of this fascinating history that retraces the circuitous path towards legalizing same-sex marriage in the United States. —Peter L. Stein

The Front

A classic better appreciated decades after its release, The Front is a comedy about a deadly serious subject. Woody Allen portrays a somewhat naïve front for a trio of blacklisted television writers; Zero Mostel, in a role based partly on his own story, plays a Blacklist victim who cannot betray his Jewishness. Walter Bernstein got a much-deserved Oscar® nomination for Best Screenplay.

A Generation Apart

About This Film

Germans and Jews

This thoughtful documentary is a subtle examination of the history of Germany’s postwar Jewish population and of the fraught and fragile relations between Jews and non-Jews. Structured around a dinner party attended by Germans and Jews—some of whom were born in Germany, some who are “Germans by choice”—the film negotiates sensitive questions of memory, guilt, identity and redemption with grace and aplomb while giving access to both sides of a crucial historical dialogue. —Seth Barron*SJM: Single Jewish Mom Free Screening

Gideon's Army

This Sundance award-winning documentary confronts the legacy of the landmark US Supreme Court decision in Gideon vs. Wainwright, which established the right to legal representation for indigent clients in criminal cases. Filmmaker Dawn Porter tracks three understaffed and underfunded public defenders in the South as they struggle to represent their clients. Gideon's Army shines a much deserved light on these unsung civil rights heroes of our times.

Gilbert

If you think you know Gilbert Gottfried, the brash, shrill-voiced (“Aflac!”), boundary-pushing comic, think again. In this surprisingly candid documentary portrait, director Neil Berkeley reveals the foul-mouthed comedian in a whole new light as a loving husband and father of two young children. Featuring interviews with comics like Whoopi Goldberg and behind-the-scenes glimpses of Gottfried’s performances, Gilbert separates the man from the act, and what emerges is unexpectedly tender.

Glickman

Marty Glickman was an inspiration to millions. Featuring interviews with Bob Costas, Bill Bradley and Marv Albert, this documentary brilliantly captures Glickman’s life as an athlete, a pioneering sports broadcaster (he coined the term “swish”), and as a passionate advocate of sports as a means of transcending divisions created by race, class and religion. If you loved The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, this movie is for you. [MINIGUIDE 69/70]

God's Slave

Buenos Aires, 1994. Ahmed, a committed Muslim martyr, works as a successful young surgeon. But his destiny, when the inevitable day arrives, is to carry out an attack for radical Islam. Meanwhile, David, a cold-blooded Mossad agent, awaits the opportunity to exact some very personal revenge. This pulse-pounding thriller pits two determined men against each other in the aftermath of the deadly real-life bombings in Buenos Aries against the Jewish community.

The Good Postman

Golyam Dervent, Bulgaria: When gentle village postman Ivan runs for mayor on the platform of welcoming Syrian refugees, the outcome of this humble election (to be decided by fewer than 50 voters) soon takes on all the trappings of a high drama campaign. This often funny, always absorbing documentary that screened at the Sundance Film Festival shows the uneasy confrontation of a small village with the wider world during a time of humanitarian crisis.

The Green Prince

The Green Prince is such an extraordinary story that one is tempted to think it is fiction. Based on Mosab Hassan Yousef’s memoir, Son of Hamas, it is a story of two men, spy and handler, whom history insists must be adversaries. That they could reach a point of trust or friendship seems absurd. Embroidering a tangled web of intrigue, terror, and betrayal, director Nadav Schirman builds superb tension throughout a surprisingly emotional journey.

Hannah Arendt

This sophisticated drama about the life, career and loves of German Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) shines a light on one of the greatest independent thinkers of the 20th century. When New Yorker magazine sends her to Jerusalem in 1961 to witness the trial of the notorious Nazi, Adolph Eichmann, Arendt begins to formulate her now famous concept ”the banality of evil” that opens up a flood of controversy.

Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story

This sweet documentary chronicles the married couple of storyboard artist Harold Michelson and film researcher Lillian Michelson, two unsung heroes of Hollywood’s Golden Age who worked on some of the most famous films of the era together.

A Healthy Baby Girl

About This Film

Hello I Must be Going

Celebrated character actress Melanie Lynskey (Heavenly Creatures, television’s Two and Half Men) gives a breakout performance as Amy Minsky, a thirtysomething divorcee, back under the suburban Connecticut roof of her parents (a wonderful Blythe Danner and John Rubenstein). Spending her days in sweatpants watching old Marx Brothers movies, Amy has put her life on hold, waiting for something or someone to ignite the spark lacking in her life.Sundance 2012, Opening Night Film[MINIGUIDE 68/70]

Hitler's Children

Filmmaker Chanoch Ze'evi interviews relatives of high-ranking Nazi officials, who struggle with the guilt of their terrible family legacies.

Hot House

Nearly 10,000 Palestinians are incarcerated in Israel today. Most Israelis regard these “security prisoners” as criminals but to the Palestinians they are freedom fighters, and martyrs. Granted extraordinary access to the highest-security institutions, filmmaker Shimon Dotan uncovers a startling truth: Israeli prisons have become a breeding ground for the next generation of Palestinian leaders and a hotbed for terrorist plots. —David Courier.

How to Change the World

Before it was the world’s largest activist organization, Greenpeace was the love child of an eclectic group of Vancouver neighbors (journalists, scientists, and hippies). United in their opposition to a U.S. atomic test on an Alaskan island, they sailed an aging fishing boat straight for the test site.

Humor Me

This heartfelt father-son comedy starring Elliott Gould, Jemaine Clement and Ingrid Michaelson follows a struggling playwright who is forced to move in with his joke-telling dad in a New Jersey retirement community and learns, as his father often says, "life's going to happen, whether you smile or not.”

I Have Never Forgotten You

After surviving the horrors of the Holocaust, architect Simon Wiesenthal dedicated the rest of his life to hunting down Nazis who escaped prosecution after the war. This documentary details his life and his work with the American War Crimes Unit, which tracked down more than 1,000 Nazi war criminals with his help.

Ida

Poland, 1962. On the eve of her vows, 18-year-old novice Anna meets her estranged aunt Wanda, a cynical Communist judge who shocks the naïve Anna with a stunning revelation

In the Family

Filmmaker Joanna Rudnick was 27 years old when she discovered she had BRCA—a genetic mutation that is particularly high among Ashkenazi Jewish women. We join Rudnick as she struggles with an impossible decision—whether to remove her healthy breasts and ovaries or risk a staggeringly high likelihood of developing a deadly cancer. The result is a powerful and gripping documentary that is as life-affirming as it is heartbreaking.

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power

While many sequels do not live up to their predecessors, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is a rare exception. A decade after An Inconvenient Truth, local filmmakers Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk follow Vice President Al Gore as he continues his tireless efforts to alert the human inhabitants of this planet to the catstrophic consequences of climate change and the urgency to take action.

Indignation

The award-winning writer and producer James Schamus (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain) crafts a poignant and faithful adaptation of Philip Roth’s Indignation as his directorial debut. Hailed by Roth himself as the best film adaptation of his work, Indignation is a moving portrait of Marcus Messner, the son of a Kosher butcher who sets off for college in 1950’s Ohio and finds his atheist self at odds with its Christian Midwestern culture.- Lexi LebanScreened at 2016 Sundance Film Festival

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