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Filtered By: Ni Clear All

A 20-year-old American Israeli decides to move back to Israel and reconnect with his roots, only to be institutionalized in a mental-health facility constructed on the grounds of a Palestinian village that was massacred by a Jewish militia back in 1948.

In Samuel Maoz's award-winning, acclaimed narrative feature, Michael and Dafna are devastated when army officials show up at their home to announce the death of their son Jonathan. While his sedated wife rests, Michael spirals into a whirlwind of anger only to experience one of life's unfathomable twists, which rival the surreal military experiences of his son.

The Freedom to Marry

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

A journalist (Ruth Rieser) wants a Holocaust survivor (Peter Simonischek) to testify against a former Nazi.

Each year, the Hermelin family of Detroit come together to celebrate Passover (pesach) - honoring the liberation of the Jews from slavery in ancient Egypt - by eating Gefilte fish, the meal that stars in New York-born director Rachel Fleit's new film. While simple on the surface, gefilte is filled with history and meaning (just like the recipe itself, which includes a stuffing of fish, salt, vegetables and egg). However, "the dish of gefilte isn't about the fish," says the Brooklyn-based writer and director. Instead, "it becomes a lightening rod, in which we project all of our feelings about family, identity, tradition, struggle, loss - and as always, love.""

Gett: The Trial of Vivian Amsalem

Gett: The Trial of Vivian Amsalem

In Israel there is neither civil marriage nor civil divorce. Only Rabbis can legitimate a marriage or its dissolution. But this dissolution is only possible with full consent from the husband, who in the end has more power than the judges.

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]

Journalist, fighter, and feminist Gloria Steinem is an indelible icon known for her world-shaping activism, her guidance of the revolutionary women’s movement, and her writing that has impacted generations. In this nontraditional biopic, against the backdrop of a lonely bus on an open highway, five Glorias trace Steinem’s influential journey to prominence.

Go for Zucker! - An Unorthodox Comedy

Go for Zucker! - An Unorthodox Comedy

Jaeckie Zucker, a hard-drinking, pool-playing, lovable scoundrel in Berlin, is up to his ears in debt. When he learns that his long-estranged mother has willed him a sizeable inheritance, he thinks his ship has come in. But there’s a catch: Jaeckie--who gave up all things Jewish long ago--must first reconcile with his Orthodox Jewish brother, who is coming, family in tow, for the funeral. The madcap adventure that follows finds Jaeckie desperately trying to "pass" as observant, while trying to ditch the funeral so he can play in a high-stakes pool tournament.Politically incorrect, ironic and utterly contemporary, what makes Go for Zucker! such a standout is that, while in the irreverent mode of Mel Brooks and Larry David, this is a comedy from Germany--daring to present Jews in a guilt-free context beyond the Holocaust. Berlin-based writer/director Dani Levy has created a screwball comedy that breaks every taboo.

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

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

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.

Guy Hircefeld, a Guy with a Camera

Guy Hircefeld, a Guy with a Camera

Guy Hircefeld, a veteran that served in the Israeli military at the start of its occupation of Palestine in the 1980s, now fights against Israeli occupation, ethnic cleansing, and environmental warfare. His only weapon is a camera.

On the outside, Harley is a confident and brash criminal defense attorney, who relishes taking the side of the underdog . On the inside, this middle-aged Jewish man living with his mother is still deeply scarred by the bully who antagonized him in high school. Harley, despite his erraticness and eccentricity, remains a man with a generous heart in this unique portrait of a true larger-than-life character.

Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story

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.

Before 1960, predominantly Jewish Weequahic High School in Newark, NJ, graduated some of the top students in the country. By 2000, the school had devolved into a breeding ground for gang violence in one of the nation’s most dangerous cities. Heart of Stone is a moving portrait of a bold principal who reaches into the school’s successful past to give his students a hopeful future.

Hello I Must be Going

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]

How to Change the World

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.

How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire

How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire

Preceded by Woody Before AllenAfter discovering the journals of his mysterious grandmother Maroussia, amiable English director Daniel Edelstyn sets off to Ukraine where he makes a startling discovery. In his family’s impoverished Russian village, he comes upon his great-grandfather’s vodka factory. Edelstyn returns to the UK with the wide-eyed ambition of importing his own brand of spirits and finds his life forever altered by the woman he never met.[MINIGUIDE 65/70]

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

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.

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

Sex, drugs, techno, and . . . Arab traditions? What sounds like an unlikely combination exerts a strong emotional attraction in this female dramedy about friendship, love and the search for independence by three young, hip, Palestinian women. When the Muslim—and religious—Nour moves in with hard-partying Laila and Salma, all three begin their own journeys of self-discovery and gain an understanding of the male-dominated society in which they live but refuse to reconcile themselves to.

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.

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