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Judith Helfand: Freedom of Expression Award 2019 | COOKED: Survival by Zip Code

Judith Helfand: Freedom of Expression Award 2019 | COOKED: Survival by Zip Code

In July 1995, a heat wave overtook Chicago: high humidity and a layer of heat-retaining pollution drove the heat index up to more than 126 degrees. City roads buckled, rails warped, electric grids failed, thousands became ill and people began to die - by the hundreds. Cooked tells the story of this heat wave, the most traumatic in U.S. history, in which 739 Chicago citizens died in a single week, most of them poor, elderly, and African American. Balancing serious and somber with her respectful, albeit ironic and and signature quirkly style, Peabody award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand explores this drama that, when peeled away, reveals the less newsworthy but long-term crisis of pernicious poverty, economic, and social isolation and racism. Cooked is a story about life, death, and the politics of crisis in an American city.

Crip Camp (Cinegogue Sessions LIVE)

Crip Camp (Cinegogue Sessions LIVE)

No one at Camp Jened could’ve imagined that those summers in the woods together would be the beginnings of a revolution. Just down the road from Woodstock, Camp Jened was a camp for disabled teens. Directors Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht (a former Jened camper himself) deliver a rousing film about a group of campers turned activists who shaped the future of the disability-rights movement and changed accessibility legislation for everyone.

Set in contemporary Tel Aviv, six diverse best friends gather to watch the wildly popular UniverSong competition. Appalled by the Israeli entry, they decide to create their own and record it on a mobile phone.

Dancing Dogs of Dombrova, The

Dancing Dogs of Dombrova, The

On a cold winter night, estranged siblings Sarah and Aaron Cotler arrive at an empty train station in Dombrova, Poland. With their only available ride being a determinedly silent driver, they embark on a quest to fulfill their dying grandmother's wish-to find, dig up, and bring home the bones of her favorite childhood dog, Peter. While navigating the many obstacles and colorful characters they encounter on their journey, Sarah and Aaron must come to terms with their own demons and differences, while also contending with a soicety seemingly content to let its past lay buried for good.

Dancing in Jaffa

Dancing in Jaffa

World champion ballroom dancer Pierre Dulaine has a dream: to see Jewish and Palestinian Israeli children dance together. A passionate man with humble beginnings in Jaffa, he returns to attempt what seems to be an impossible feat: teaching children ballroom dance in a divided society. With warmth and tenderness, this inspiring documentary captures the children’s amazing transformation, offering hope that for a new generation Dulaine’s dream will become reality.

Death Metal Grandma

Death Metal Grandma

97 year old Holocaust survivor Inge Ginsberg's wants to be recognized as a death metal singer.

Still image from the film Demon

DEMON is a clever and suspenseful thriller that reinterprets the Jewish legend of the dybbuk, set at a rural Polish wedding. Director Marcin Wrona has wrought an intricate, entertaining and downright gripping film.

When university professor Deborah E. Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) includes World War II historian David Irving in a book about Holocaust deniers, Irving accuses her of libel and sparks a legal battle for historical truth.

The Devil We Know

The Devil We Know

Victims take on Dupont when they discover it has knowingly been using a toxic chemical.

Dina and Scott are in love and planning a wedding, a stressful time for most couples. But they are not a typical couple. Dina is a 49-year-old woman with a tragic past. Scott is a Walmart greeter who lives with his parents. Both are adults on the mental development spectrum for whom love, sexuality and independence are fraught with challenges. Dina chronicles this poignant time in their lives as they search for intimacy and acceptance.

(Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies

(Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies

Lying gets easier the more you do it—that is, until you get caught. And it turns out we all lie a lot more than we think, as Duke University professor and “dishonesty guru” Dan Ariely has discovered through his behavioural research, which also suggests that lying to ourselves and others can have major consequences for society at large.

Dorfman in Love

Dorfman in Love

By all appearances, single 28-year-old accountant Deb Dorfman had embraced a life of suburban mediocrity. When a promise to house-sit for her long-time crush—a hunky war correspondent—uproots her from her sheltered San Fernando Valley home and thrusts her into the hub of a newly revitalized downtown LA, Deb’s world is poised to crack open. Transformation is inevitable, but is love? Elliot Gould co-stars in this delightfully quirky indie romantic comedy. [MINIGUIDE 70/70]

The Driver Is Red

The Driver Is Red

Secret agent Zvi Aharoni is hunting one of the highest ranking Nazi war criminals on the run.

The End of Meat

The End of Meat

This provocative documentary asks, “What would the world look like if we didn’t eat meat?”

A Face in the Crowd

A Face in the Crowd

This 1957 satire about the corrosive influence of celebrity and media on public opinion finds a charming rogue (Andy Griffith) parlaying his local celebrity into a national bully pulpit and political influence. Sound familiar?

Facing Windows features dual love stories, one from the 1940s between two Italian Jews and one contemporary story of neighbors who watch each other furtively from facing windows across a street. The erotic tension between a sexy but routine-weary woman (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and her hunky Italian Clark Kent look-alike neighbor (Raoul Bova) gives way to quiet communication and a profound experience when together they befriend Davide , an elderly Jewish man (Massimo Girotti).

Fanny's Journey

Fanny's Journey

Riveting from the first frame to the last, Fanny’s Journey is the true and absorbing story of a 13-year-old girl who is separated from her parents in Nazi-occupied France. Fanny is brave and determined and leads her younger sisters and a group of Jewish children towards sanctuary in Switzerland. Expertly directed and well acted, the film emphasizes the resilience of these young heroes and is especially relevant in the present moment.

In November 2016, a nasty election cycle had exposed a seismic cultural rift, and the country suddenly felt like a much different place. For underground cartoonist Matt Furie, that sensation was even more surreal. Furie’s comic creation Pepe the Frog, conceived more than a decade earlier as a laid-back humanoid amphibian, had unwittingly become a grotesque political pawn.FEELS GOOD MAN is a Frankenstein-meets-Alice in Wonderland journey of an artist battling to regain control of his creation, while confronting a disturbing cast of characters who have their own peculiar attachments to Pepe. Now, as Pepe continues to morph around the world – FEELS GOOD MAN offers a vivid, moving portrait of one man, one frog, and the very strange reality we’ve all found ourselves living in.

Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles | SFJFF39's OPENING NIGHT FILM

Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles | SFJFF39's OPENING NIGHT FILM

The documentary tells the story behind Broadway musical "Fiddler on The Roof” and its creative roots in early 1960s New York. “Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles” includes interviews with the Broadway show’s Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning lyricist Sheldon Harnick, legendary producer Hal Prince, original cast members, such as Austin Pendleton, as well as rare archival footage of choreographer Jerome Robbins.

14 year old Jewish Mina, is trying to navigate between a surreal routine dictated by the civil war in Ethiopia and her last days of youth with her Christian boyfriend Eli. When she discovers that her family is planning to immigrate to Israel and escape the war, she weaves an alternate plan in order to save Eli. But in times of war, plans tend to go wrong. Marsha's coming of age film debut film is based on her childhood memories of a civil-war-torn Ethiopia.

A Film Unfinished

A Film Unfinished

Filmmaker Yael Hersonski discovers that the Warsaw Ghetto footage that we’ve seen in countless documentaries was actually staged by the Nazis using the actual Jewish inhabitants of the Ghetto as actors. A Film Unfinished is a rigorous and profound documentary that simultaneously exposes the perversity of Nazi propaganda, honors its victims and pays tribute to the resiliency of the filmmaker’s own grandmother and the other survivors of the Ghetto.

Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story

Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story

Take a riveting journey into the intrepid exploits of the leader of Operation Entebbe. On July 4, 1976, 30-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan (Yoni) Netanyahu led the daring operation to rescue the 103 Israelis who were held hostage in Uganda. Filmmakers Jonathan Gruber and Ari Daniel Pinchot delicately weave the epic with the intimate in this personal story of a young man who dedicated his life to the service of his people. [MINIGUIDE 71/70]

Diane Kurys (Peppermint Soda, Entre Nous) once again mines her autobiography to fictionalize the early years of her parents’ marriage, a mysterious uncle of whom nobody speaks and the circumstances of her birth. Intimacy and suspense are the keys to Kurys’s novelistic framing of Jewish life in a corner of Lyon, France, just after the war, when freedom meant one thing to a man, another to a woman.

For the Love of Spock

For the Love of Spock

“Live long and prosper.” It’s impossible not to cherish those famous words spoken by the beloved half-human Vulcan. Leonard Nimoy, the man behind the pointy ears, left an indelible mark as an artist and as a mensch. Featuring clips from Nimoy’s career and inspiring interviews with the Star Trek cast, director Adam Nimoy has crafted a loving tribute to not only his father, but also to the man we know as Mr. Spock. —Joshua Moore

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