SF Chronicle Special Offer | SFJFF38: July 19

Love, Gilda

Gilda Radner was an instant sensation when she burst onto the scene with her brilliant, fearless and uproarious SNL performances, and when she died after an epic battle with ovarian cancer, a piece of us left with her. SFJFF38 is thrilled to open the Festival with this endearing, exuberant and intimate tribute that uses rare personal recordings, clear-eyed journal entries and interviews with SNL cast members to bring Radner back into our lives.

Closing Night: Sammy Davis, Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me

It’s hard to imagine a more talented and groundbreaking performer who led a more complicated and contradictory life than Sammy Davis Jr. Featuring excerpts from his exhilarating performances and star-studded interviews, director Sam Pollard’s riveting documentary presents a very full and very human portrait of this complex, courageous and conflicted man.

FOE Award: Liz Garbus - The Fourth Estate

Prolific documentarian Liz Garbus has been at the forefront of nonfiction filmmaking for decades. From The Farm: Angola, USA to Bobby Fischer Against the World (SFJFF 2011), What Happened, Miss Simone?, and now with The Fourth Estate, her latest documentary about The New York Times' coverage of the Trump Administration's first hundred days, the work of this two-time Academy Award nominee, Peabody winner and Emmy winner is a true embodiment of the Freedom of Expression Award.

To Dust

CENTERPIECE NARRATIVE. A Hasidic cantor (Géza Röhrig) and an under-equipped biology professor (Matthew Broderick) become blasphemously obsessed with the process of a human body’s decay. What follows are illicit dives into anatomy textbooks, outlandish homemade experiments, a road trip to a body farm, and the ever-lurking prospect of dybbuk possession. Röhrig and Broderick are an unholy match made in deadpan heaven as they embark on this increasingly literal journey into the underground.

The Waldheim Waltz

CENTERPIECE DOCUMENTARY. In 1986 former United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim launched an election bid to become Austria’s president. But revelations suddenly surfaced that Waldheim had been a German army officer suspiciously close to Nazi wartime atrocities in the Balkans. A stunning chronicle of the heated race and its foreshadow of populist, right-wing demagogues from Donald Trump to Austria’s Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache.

The Man Who Stole Banksy

NEXT WAVE SPOTLIGHT. In 2007 Banksy slips into Palestine to paint on the West Bank Barrier. Someone takes offense at a piece depicting an Israeli soldier checking a donkey’s ID. A local taxi driver decides to cut it off and sell it on eBay. What follows is a story of clashing cultures, art, identity, theft and black market. Like Banksy’s art would be meaningless without its context, so the absence of it would be meaningless without an understanding of the elements that brought his artwork from Bethlehem to a Western auction house, along with the wall it was painted on.

Satan & Adam

LOCAL SPOTLIGHT. On a street in Harlem in 1986, a young blond-haired Jewish kid who plays a first-rate blues harmonic struck up a musical friendship with a street musician named Sterling Magee, who calls himself Mr. Satan. The duo puts together an act that leads to music festivals and a successful record. Just as quickly, the act crashes when Satan mysteriously disappears. This documentary captures a fascinating journey of friendship, heartbreak and the transformative power of the blues.

The City Without Jews (with live score)

The economy in mythical Utopia is in the dumpster, and who is blamed? The usual scapegoat: the Jews. After the Jews are expelled, however, the economy, missing their invaluable participation, actually takes a turn for the worse, and Utopia begs them to come back. This 1924 silent Austrian satire is an object lesson in the absurdity of such thinking, and an unwitting prediction of the horrific events in Europe ten years later.

Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes

The preeminent jazz label of all time, which once boasted the great innovators of the great African American form—Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, for starters—was founded by a couple of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany who became aficionados and respected authenticity over profits. Sincere devotion to the art form resulted in a legacy that is still an influence on young musicians. A complete delight from beginning to end.

The Devil We Know

Parkersburg, West Virginia, has been ground zero for the impact of chemicals used in Dupont’s Teflon and other products—toxic chemicals now found in the blood of 99 percent of Americans. Workers at the plant have given birth to deformed children and local farmers have seen their herds disfigured and decimated. As victims and activists take on the powerful corporation, Dupont continues on its course with the deadly use of the chemical.

Etgar Keret: Based on a True Story

Dutch filmmakers Stephane Kaas and Rutger Lemm create a delightfully surrealistic documentary about the beloved Israeli writer and humorist. Weaving animation, live action and interviews, the film takes us deep into the psyche of Keret, a son of Holocaust survivors, whose fiction explores the absurdities of daily life. Like friends Ira Glass and Jonathan Safran Foer, you’ll be charmed by Keret and be left with an intense desire to read (or reread) his stories.

On Her Shoulders

Nadia Murad, a 23-year-old Yazidi refugee and reluctant activist who was appointed a UN Goodwill Ambassador, is the subject of this piercing, powerful and critically acclaimed documentary. Alexandria Bombach, winner of the directing prize at Sundance this year, deftly captures the complexity of being a survivor and an outcast in search of a homeland, an all-too-common experience that must be told in order for genocide to truly happen “never again”.

Shalom Bollywood: The Untold History of Indian Cinema

In Shalom Bollywood: The Untold Story of Indian Cinema, award-winning filmmaker Danny Ben-Moshe tells the compelling tale of how a quartet of Jewish actresses came to dominate Indian cinema for nearly forty years. Performing under exotic names like Sulochana, Miss Rose, Pramila and Nadira, these daughters of the Baghdadi Jewish and Bene Israel communities carved their own paths in Bollywood while also retaining a deep connection to their heritage.

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