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Martin
Martin
The first visit of three young tourists at the Dachau concentration camp memorial leads to an unexpected chain of events. Just before returning to Munich, they notice an old man in the distance arguing with one of the employees. The three tourists meet the old man and are brought through the camp by him. Annoyed with the manner in which the site has been memorialized, the old man tried to convey to the tourists something about what really happened in the place years ago. After his personal tour, the old man gets on a bus and disappears. At the heart of the film lies an inconsistent documentary portrait of the survivor; more than objectively documenting him, the three tourists are swept along by him. Over the course of four day, they find their view of the man constantly changing. The accidental manner in which the story unfolds provokes questions concerning the relation between historical truth and memory.
Mary and Max
Mary and Max
Oscar-winning animator Adam Elliot’s bittersweet comic fable of an unlikely yet extraordinary friendship between a middle-aged, obese New York Jew with Asperger’s syndrome and his eight-year-old pen pal from Australia. Brought to life by the bravura voice work of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette, Mary and Max is a poignant tale of a friendship between oddballs at their wits’ end with the world, but at peace with each other.
Mary Lou
Mary Lou
Acclaimed director Eytan Fox (Yossi & Jagger) brings us Meir, a young gay man coming of age in Israel, grappling with his mother’s desertion and living a double life as one of Tel Aviv’s most celebrated drag performers—all to a soundtrack by 1970s Israeli glam-rock sensation Svika Pick. This enthralling new gender-bending Israeli miniseries serves up high-energy choreography, infectious pop songs and hearty doses of high school ennui. All four episodes in one fabulous screening.
Youth Jury 2020 Award Ceremony | Masel Tov Cocktail
Youth Jury 2020 Award Ceremony | Masel Tov Cocktail
We are pleased to announce the winning film of JFI’s Second Youth Jury Award, Masel Tov Cocktail, co-directed by Arkadij Khaet and Mickey Paatzsch.
Masks On
Masks On
Israel 1991. A 12-year-old observes the tension rising at home as the threat of an Iraqi chemical attack on central Israel becomes more realistic, but she has a mission of her own: the pursuit for her first taste of alcohol.
Massacre
Massacre
A shattering documentary bringing together the silhouetted testimonies of six Lebanese perpetrators of the notorious 1982 massacres at the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in southern Lebanon, then under Israeli occupation. The film considers the nature of collective violence in a century that brought us Treblinka, My Lai, Rwanda and, now, Darfur.
The Matchmaker (2010)
The Matchmaker (2010)
An affectionate, bittersweet feature set in 1960s Haifa: Teenager Arik Burstein’s summer vacation explodes with novel attractions, including the sexy Iraqi-Jewish-American niece of his best friend and a seedy downtown movie theater run by Sylvia and a group of Jewish dwarfs who met at Auschwitz. But it is Yankele Bride—matchmaker, shady businessman and Holocaust survivor—who captivates Arik in Avi Nesher’s vibrant mosaic about coming of age and coming to terms with the past.
A Matter of Size
A Matter of Size
Herzl is a 340-pound chef who lives with his mother, and is immersed in a culture of rigid diet regimes and fitness classes. Just as he and his seriously overweight buddies in the working-class town of Ramle, Israel, seem beaten down by weight-loss failure, Herzl discovers the one place where fat guys can be rock stars: the world of sumo wrestling. An endearing and poignant comic tale, with echoes of The Full Monty, A Matter of Size traces these flawed men’s tender and funny path from body shame to body celebration, and from loneliness to love. A touching movie with a plus-size heart.
Matzo Balls and Black-Eyed Peas
Matzo Balls and Black-Eyed Peas
About This Film
Matzo Maidels
Matzo Maidels
About This Film
Maurice at the World's Fair
Maurice at the World's Fair
About This Film
Max Baer's Last Right Hook
Max Baer's Last Right Hook
About This Film
Max Minsky and Me
Max Minsky and Me
In the world of Jewish film, an often serious and mature genre, it’s rather rare to come across fun, gentle, family-oriented comedies—so imagine our delight to find Max Minsky and Me, a little gem of a story set, of all places, in modern Berlin.Nelly Sue Edelmeister is a supersmart, rail-thin 12-year-old whose twin obsessions are astronomy and her distant heartthrob (and fellow stargazer), young Edouard, Prince of Luxembourg. Nelly lives in Berlin with her German Christian dad and American Jewish mom, who is very eager for Nelly to crack down on her bat mitzvah studies. Nelly doesn’t take much interest in them, and has even less patience for the very unbookish concerns of her schoolmates, whose lives center on the girls’ basketball team.But when Nelly learns that those who make the basketball team will go to a tournament in Luxembourg hosted by her favorite prince, she negotiates a deal with a 15-year-old neighbor, Max: she’ll do his homework for him if he coaches her to become a clutch basketball player.Thus begins the delicate and unlikely friendship between gawky Nelly and reluctant Max, brought charmingly to life by Zoe Moore and Emil Reinke. The film’s glimpses of today’s Jewish Berlin—Nelly’s gossipy great-aunt, an overearnest rabbi, an insecure mother—are handled with an easy nonchalance, aided by Holly-Jane Rahlens’s jaunty script, full of sharply observed adolescent angst laced with the occasional cosmic fantasy taking us into the outer spaces of Nelly’s vivid imagination.
Mayor
Mayor
MAYOR is a real-life political saga following Musa Hadid, the Christian mayor of Ramallah, during his second term in office. His immediate goals: repave the sidewalks, attract more tourism, and plan the city's Christmas celebrations. His ultimate mission: to end the occupation of Palestine. Rich with detailed observation and a surprising amount of humor, MAYOR offers a portrait of dignity amidst the madness and absurdity of endless occupation while posing a question: how do you run a city when you don't have a country?
Mazel Tov: Lesbian and Gay Weddings
Mazel Tov: Lesbian and Gay Weddings
Get ready to sing "simon tov and mazel tov" at two Jewish lesbian weddings in the U.S. and a gay Jewish wedding in Rotterdam. Local filmmaker Bonnie Burt’s My Sister, My Bride, Academy Award-nominated Chicks in White Satin, and The Gil & Moti Wedding Project will have you heading for the chuppah!
McJew
McJew
About This Film
Meaning of Hitler, The
Meaning of Hitler, The
What can history tell us about the present? Filmmakers Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker (Karl Marx City) search for answers, taking inspiration from Sebastian Haffner’s 1978 German best-selling book The Meaning of Hitler. Shot in nine countries, the film explores what Hitler means in the current waves of white supremacy, antisemitism, and the weaponization of history. We hear provocative insights from historians and writers such as Martin Amis, Deborah Lipstadt, and Saul Friedlander, along with famed Nazi hunters Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, on why understanding history is more urgent than ever.
Meet Michael Oppenheim
Meet Michael Oppenheim
About This Film
Memento Mori
Memento Mori
About This Film
Memoir of War
Memoir of War
In Nazi-occupied Paris, a young Marguerite Duras strikes up a delicate, high stakes entanglement with a Vichy collaborator.
Memorial Day
Memorial Day
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Memories of a River
Memories of a River
About This Film
Menachem and Fred
Menachem and Fred
Meet Menachem and Fred, brothers who themselves have only just re-met as adults. Since separating as children during the Holocaust, they’ve become very different men, with different nationalities and religious orientations. Each has avoided his memories, and each is finally forced—by an old letter and a regretted commitment to the filmmakers—to confront history. We travel with them to Germany and France on an emotional tour of their past.
Menashe
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.
Mendel
Mendel
About This Film
Metallic Blues
Metallic Blues
Two bumbling used-car dealers in Israel hatch a scheme to sell a shiny blue limousine in Germany and make a profit. A comic, touching road movie starring the brilliant Mutt-and-Jeff duo Avi Kushner and Moshe Ivgy as buddies with big dreams but even bigger problems.
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis
Renowned Russian theater director Valery Fokin has transformed Kafka’s The Metamorphosis into an eerie and stunningly beautiful film. Evgeny Mironov, whose physical mimicry is phenomenal, turns in an unforgettable perform-ance as Gregor Samsa—the middle-level clerk who awakes one morning to find he has changed into a monstrous insect. Metamorphosis is a breathtakingly shot, arrestingly intelligent adaptation of one of the great stories of modern literature.
Michael Tilson Thomas: Where Now Is | 2:30pm pst
Michael Tilson Thomas: Where Now Is | 2:30pm pst
In 1970, Michael Tilson Thomas was considered the great young hope of American classical music. Oscillating between performance and the personal, Michael Tilson Thomas: Where Now Is offers an intimate look at an exceptional artist who continues to blaze his own trail.
Milena
Milena
About This Film
Still from Milk
Milk
In 1972, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) and his then-lover Scott Smith leave New York for San Francisco, with Milk determined to accomplish something meaningful in his life.
The Milky Way
The Milky Way
About This Film
Mina Tannenbaum
Mina Tannenbaum
About This Film
Mind/Game: The Unquiet Journey of Chamique Holdsclaw
Mind/Game: The Unquiet Journey of Chamique Holdsclaw
WNBA star Chamique Holdsclaw has always defied expectations. In her youth she seemed destined for trouble having been born to alcoholic parents. But she worked out her frustrations on the basketball court and grew up to become an iconic figure in women’s basketball, revered by some as “the female Michael Jordan.” Her struggle and her subsequent advocacy around mental illness issues embody the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, repairing the world through one’s actions.
The Miracle of Intervale Avenue
The Miracle of Intervale Avenue
About This Film
Mirror Image
Mirror Image
Israeli filmmaker Danielle Schwartz negotiates with her family to tell the story of a mirror taken from a Palestinian village in the Nakba.
Mish Mish
Mish Mish
Shortly after the death of his unique uncles, Didier Frenkel descends to the basement of their shared home and finds a treasure: an ancient animated archive from Egypt starring Mish-Mish Effendi, the Arabic equivalent of Mickey Mouse. His uncles have kept this surprising chapter in their lives under cover.

Didier begins restoring the films and unveils the story of the rise and fall of these pioneers of Arab animation. Surprisingly, Didier’s mother strongly opposes the project.

The JFI Archive project seeks to preserve a record of all films exhibited by the Jewish Film Institute and the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Our dedication to independent filmmakers ensures quality films are prevented from becoming lost and are recognized far beyond their original screening date. Watch films featured in this archive online on JFI On Demand