JFI On Demand | Jewish Film Institute

Exhibition Series

2020 JFI Completion Grants
2021 JFI Completion Grants
2022 JFI Completion Grants
2023 JFI Completion Grants
2024 Filmmakers in Residence
2024 JFI Completion Grants
40th Holiday Festival
Cinegogue Summer Days
Co-Presentation 2007
Co-Presentation 2008
Co-Presentation 2009
Co-Presentation 2010
Co-Presentation 2013
Co-Presentation 2014
Israel in Motion
JFI/JSP Momentum Awards
Magnes
Member Screening 2005
Member Screening 2006
Member Screening 2011
Member Screening 2012
Member Screening 2013
Member Screening 2014
Member Screening 2015
Member Screening 2016
Member Screening 2017
Member Screening 2018
Member Screening 2020
Member Screening 2021
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 at JCCSF
SFJFF Madrid
SFJFF Moscow
Stories She Tells
Sundance
Urban Adamah
WinterFest 2014
WinterFest 2015
WinterFest 2016
WinterFest 2017
WinterFest 2018
WinterFest 2019
Winterfest 2020
WinterFest 2021
WinterFest 2022
YBCA

JFI On Demand

Anti-Semitism
Black History Month
ChaiFlicks
Cinegogue Sessions
Comedy
Coming of Age
Curator Picks
Filmmaker Distributed
Films for the High Holidays
Holocaust
Israeli Films
J Weekly Top 10 Israeli Films
JFI Completion Grantee
JFI Resident
LGBTQ
Religion & Spirituality
Short Films
Social Justice
Streaming Service
WinterFest
Women's History Month
Yom HaShoah: Holocaust Remembrance

Film Type

Animation
Documentary
Experimental
Narrative
Television Series

Program Type

Cinegogue Sessions
Cinegogue Summer Days
Festival
Member Screening
Next Wave
Stories She Tells
Sundance Film Festival
WinterFest 2018
WinterFest 2019
WinterFest 2020
WinterFest 2021

Filtered By: Dr Clear All

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

Intent to Destroy

One hundred years after 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Empire, Academy Award–nominated documentarian and this year’s Freedom of Expression Award recipient Joe Berlinger reveals the disturbing truth behind Turkey’s well-funded campaign of genocide denial, suppression and intimidation. Berlinger utilizes the filming of The Promise, a $100 million Hollywood film production ambitiously billed as the Armenian Schindler’s List, to explore this historical tragedy and its relevance to the barbaric genocides that followed.

Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People

Pulitzer is an American icon who spoke of "fake news" over one hundred years ago. He fought the dangers that the suppression of news had for a democracy long before our present threats to press freedom.

King of the Corner

Leo Spivak is drifting through life without a compass. His father is aging fast, his teenage daughter is rebelling, his protégé is after his job and his wife is losing her patience. A twist of fate and some bizarre wisdom from a "freelance rabbi" help Leo navigate the murky waters of his life and turn his crisis into a second-chance.

The Law in These Parts

Inventive Israeli filmmaker Ra’anan Alexandrowicz (Inner Tour, SFJFF 2001; James’ Journey to Jerusalem) conducts an award-winning investigation into the legal system that has governed Palestinians in the West Bank since the 1967 war. Interviewing the judges and lawyers entrusted with interpreting the law, the filmmaker raises the core issue: Can a modern democracy impose a prolonged military occupation on another people while retaining its core democratic values? [MINIGUIDE 67/70]

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.

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.

Memoir of War

In Nazi-occupied Paris, a young Marguerite Duras strikes up a delicate, high stakes entanglement with a Vichy collaborator.

Menashe

Joshua Z. Weinstein’s Brooklyn-based Yiddish drama is an authentic, tightly written, compelling story for anyone jonesing to hear more than a bisl (little bit) of the mamaloshen (mother tongue). Menashe, a complex and lovable schlemiel, is a young widower deep in the heart of New York’s ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish community who is fighting for custody of his son and struggling with his aversion to marrying again.

Molly's Game

Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut stars Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba in the true story of Molly Bloom, proprietor of Hollywood’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before being shut down by the FBI.

The Museum

The Israel Museum poses for its own complex portrait in this elegant observational documentary.

My Fantasia

The Darwish brothers are Iraqi Jews who run an Israeli menorah factory. Beyond that, nothing is simple in My Fantasia as the filmmaker probes the family secrets of his silent father and quirky uncles.

Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer

Norman Oppenheimer (Richard Gere) lives a lonely life in the margins of New York City power and money; a would-be operator dreaming up financial schemes that never come to fruition, until he meets a charismatic Israeli politician.

On Broadway | Opening Night at the San Jose Drive-in

From composers to lyricists and producers to actors, Jews have played a pivotal role in the creation of many of Broadway’s biggest hits. This entertaining documentary tracks the breakthrough works and artists who made Broadway into a venue where you will find everything from the experimental and iconoclastic to the corporate and commercial, reflecting the diverse, complicated society in which we live.

On Her Shoulders

Nadia Murad, a 23-year-old Yazidi refugee and reluctant activist is the subject of this critically acclaimed documentary.

The Oslo Diaries

EAST BAY OPENING NIGHT: Diaries of the negotiators and long-discarded footage of the actual Oslo negotiations comprise this riveting documentary.

Paradise

A compelling tale of loss, betrayal and redemption, Andrei Konchalovsky’s bold, black-and-white World War II drama won the Venice Film Festival’s Silver Lion and was Russia’s entry in the 2017 Academy Awards. Three lives fatefully intersect when Russian countess Olga is arrested for sheltering two Jewish boys in Nazi-occupied France. Echoing the intensity of Laszlo Nemes Son of Saul, Konchalovsky’s deeply spiritual vision is a major contribution to Holocaust cinema.

Partner with the Enemy

This soulful documentary suggests the world might look different if women and mothers were calling the shots. Co-directors Chen Shelach and Duki Dror (Incessant Visions—Letters from an Architect, SFJFF 2011) follow Anat and Rola, entrepreneurs from Kibbutz Mizra and Ramallah who join forces to start a logistics company specializing in the release and transport of Palestinian cargo shipped to Israeli ports. But a hostile environment threatens the women’s partnership.

Promise at Dawn

Writer/statesman Romain Gary is plagued by the long shadow cast by the ambitions of his mother.

RBG

While most Americans think of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a progressive superhero and the beacon of left-leaning thinking on a court that veers ever-rightward, this raucous and informative documentary portrait reveals the complex history that brought her to this point.

Roll Red Roll

When social media, “boys will be boys” culture and vigilante justice collided, Steubenville, Ohio, was forever changed

Rue Mandar

Take a traditional Jewish funeral whose rituals no one can quite recall. Mix in a Yiddishkeit setting in a predominantly Sephardic Jewish community. Add one of the most beautiful cities in the world as your location and top it off with a terrific ensemble cast. The result, Idit Cébula’s charmingly poignant French film Rue Mandar, reminds us that the messy, sometimes humorous and often bittersweet business of death can lead to new beginnings.

Safe Spaces (After Class) | Next Wave Spotlight

"Safe Spaces" is a comedy about a NYC professor who spends a week re-connecting with his family while defending his reputation over controversial behavior at a college.

Saviors in the Night

Based on true events, this bravura drama powerfully records one memorable instance of moral courage under desperate conditions. Menne Spiegel, a German Jew, meets his old army comrade Heinrich Aschoff on the eve of a mass deportation of Jews in 1943. Aschoff, a Catholic farmer with a conscience, agrees to shelter Spiegel’s wife Marga and their daughter in spite of the deadly risk to his own family. Saviors in the Night, based on Marga’s best-selling memoir, relates the extraordinary true story of the families’ perilous years together. Join us for Opening Night in San Francisco with special invited guests Marga Spiegel, director Ludi Boeken and principal actor Lia Hoensbroech. Followed by Opening Night Bash at Swedish American Hall.

Need help using JFI On Demand? See our FAQ page.