JFI On Demand | Jewish Film Institute

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Film Type

Animation
Documentary
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Television Series

Program Type

Cinegogue Sessions
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Festival
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Filtered By: Ant Clear All

24 Days

The 1986 kidnapping of 24-year-old Ilan Halimi by a suburban Parisian gang of thugs became a cause célèbre because of the anti-Semitic nature of the crime. This thriller based on the true events is expertly helmed by Alexandre Arcady and focuses on the police team and the ransom calls that are the detectives’ only clue to the kidnappers’ psychology. Ilan’s mother has another clue, one that the authorities are regretfully too slow to recognize.

A Crime on the Bayou

"A Crime on the Bayou" is the story of Gary Duncan, a Black teenager from Plaquemines Parish, a swampy strip of land south of New Orleans. In 1966, Duncan tries to break up an argument between white and Black teenagers outside a newly integrated school. He gently lays his hand on a white boy’s arm. The boy recoils like a snake. That night, police burst into Duncan’s trailer and arrest him for assault on a minor. A young Jewish attorney, Richard Sobol, leaves his prestigious D.C. firm to volunteer in New Orleans. With his help, Duncan bravely stands up to the District Attorney, challenging his unfair arrest. Their fight goes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and their lifelong friendship is forged.

A.K.A. Doc Pomus

This musically rich biography pays homage to Doc Pomus, the legendary Brill Building songwriter who authored such enduring rock-and-roll hits as “Save the Last Dance for Me,” “Teenager in Love,” “Viva Las Vegas” and dozens of others for talents as diverse as Dion, Elvis Presley, Dr. John and B.B. King. Like so many of his R&B songwriting colleagues, Doc Pomus was a city-bred Jew. Born Jerome Felder, he spent a lifetime overcoming both visible and private pain through his extraordinary songs. In this spirited documentary, he is revealed as an American original. [MINIGUIDE 94/100]

Adam

When nice Jewish girl Beth (Rose Byrne) moves into a new apartment, the refreshingly literal, brainy guy next door, Adam (Hugh Dancy), is probably not what her upper-middle-class Jewish mom (Amy Irving) and dad (Peter Gallagher) had in mind for her. But cupid’s arrow strikes these two different denizens of Gotham hard; they have major chemistry and within minutes we find ourselves rooting for them to overcome differences in culture and communication styles.

Afterward

Ofra Bloch, a New York-based psychoanalyst specializing in trauma, was born in Jerusalem to a Jewish family that emigrated to Palestine in the 1920s. Disturbed by the resurgence of fascism and anti-Semitism around the world, Ofra travels to Germany, Israel, and Palestine to confront her own deep-seated feelings about Germans and Palestinians, and the tensions between the Holocaust and the Nakba. In the process, she explores the nature of resistance and the possibility of hope.

American Birthright

Who hasn’t asked themselves the question “why be in a relationship?” Sure enough, filming in between her 20s and 30s, American Birthright’s director and producer Becky Tahel Bordo, doesn’t take any answer for granted, and even complicates the question by making a documentary about it.

American Factory

In 2014, a Chinese billionaire opened a Fuyao factory in a shuttered General Motors plant in Dayton, Ohio. For thousands of locals, the arrival of this multinational car-glass manufacturer meant regaining their jobs - and dignity - after the recession left them high and dry. American Factory takes us inside the facility to observe what happens when workers from profoundly different cultures collide.

Bang! The Bert Berns Story

Music meets the Mob in this biographical documentary, narrated by Steven Van Zandt, about the life and career of Bert Berns, the most important songwriter and record producer from the sixties that you never heard of.

Barney's Version

Toward the end of his life, Barney Panofsky (Paul Giamatti) looks back on his triumphs and tragedies, beginning with an ill-fated relationship with Clara (Rachelle Lefevre), whom he marries when she becomes pregnant.

Before You Know It

Stage manager Rachel Gurner still lives in her childhood apartment - along with her off-kilter actress sister, Jackie; eccentric playwright father Mel; and deadpan preteen niece Dodge - above the tiny theatre they own and operate. Level-headed and turtleneck-wearing Rachel is the only thing standing between her family and utter chaos. Then, in the wake of a sudden family tragedy, Rachel and Jackie learn their presumed-deceased mother is actually alive and thriving as a soap-opera star. Now the sisters' already-precarious balance turns upside down, and Rachel must figure out how to liberate herself from this surreal imbroglio. Co-writer/director/star Hannah Pearl Utt is a triple threat with an impeccable sense of timing and a flair for juxtaposing unpredictable elements. Just as pragmatic Rachel and off-the-wall Jackie seem to hail from different planets while inhabiting the same universe, so too do the film's over-the-top moments and characters coexist alongside subtle, grounded ones. Equal parts madcap comedy, adult coming-of-age story, and poignant drama, Before You Know It gleefully defies categorization, and that is its genius.

Bethlehem

BETHLEHEM tells the story of the unlikely bond between Razi, an Israeli secret service officer, and his Palestinian informant Sanfur.

Blue Box

The Jewish National Fund's ubiquitous Blue Boxes were an internationally successful fundraising campaign to support the purchase and forestation of land in Israel. This thought-provoking documentary focuses on Joseph Weits, a seminal figure in the growth of the organization, its tree-planting programs and the subsequent myth-building of a national narrative.

Bobbi Jene

“I want to get to that place where I have no strength to hide anything.” After a decade of stardom in Israel as part of the illustrious Batsheva Dance Company, dancer/choreographer Bobbi Jene Smith at age 30 pursues a solo career in the U.S. Winner of the Best Documentary prize at the Tribeca Film Festival, Bobbi Jene is a portrait of a dancer which is as unflinching, wondrous and embarrassing as life itself.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

Notorious for a nude scene in the 1933 film Ecstasy, Hedy Lamarr became a sex symbol for the ages and achieved top stardom in Hollywood. But her deeper passion had to do with mechanics and technology. She was obsessed with creating useful inventions to benefit mankind, and her inventions were predecessors of wi-fi, bluetooth and cell phones. Spurned as too beautiful to be smart, she nonetheless upended stereotypes and serves as a role model to this day.

The Boy Downstairs

Zosia Mamet of GIRLS fame stars in this twentysomething romantic comedy that borrows the aesthetic and location of the popular HBO show. Mamet plays Diana, an aspiring writer who moves back to New York City after living in London. Three years ago she left behind mensch and loving boyfriend Ben (Matthew Shear). Now she returns to discover that he lives in the apartment below hers. Things are about to get complicated.

Bye Bye Germany

“After World War II approximately 4,000 Jews stayed in Germany. Later, none of them could explain to their children why,” we learn in Sam Gabarski’s Bye Bye Germany. This stylized, humor-laced drama devotes itself to answering this question by portraying the lives of a sundry group of survivors who remain in Germany immediately after liberation and are led by a charismatic, top hat–wearing jokester (Run Lola Run’s masterfully expressive Moritz Bleibtreu).

Common Goal, A

Almost half the players on the Israeli National Soccer Team are Muslim, including the captain. The team’s diverse group of players causes controversy, especially during an important European tournament, most of it provoked by racist fans and the media. The players have their loyalty questioned by all sides while trying to guide Israel’s national team through the year’s biggest international challenge.

Crossing Delancey

A contemporary romantic comedy in which single, sophisticated Isabelle confronts family tradition when her grandmother hires a matchmaker to find her a marriage prospect.

Death Metal Grandma

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

The Devil We Know

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

Dina

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.

Dolce Fine Giornata

Maria Linde, a free-spirited, Jewish Polish Nobel Prize winner, lives in Tuscany surrounded by warmth and chaos in her family's villa. A loving mother and grandmother, she also fosters a secret flirtation with the much younger Egyptian man who runs a nearby seaside inn. After a terrorist attack in Rome, Maria refuses to succumb to the hysterical fear and anti-immigrant sentiment that quickly emerge, deciding in her acceptance speech of a local honor to boldly decry Europe's eroding democracy-but she is unprepared for the public and personal havoc her comments wreak.

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?

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.

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