Berkeleyside Special Offer | SFJFF38: July 19

The Oslo Diaries

EAST BAY OPENING NIGHT. In 1992, with Israeli-Palestinian relations at a low and official communication suspended, an unlikely group of negotiators—two Israeli professors and three PLO members—met secretly in Norway. Faced with a Palestinian uprising in the West Bank, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin needed a new direction. The political drama with all its intrigue, suspicion and discord is told through the actual diaries of the negotiators and the long-discarded footage of the actual Oslo negotiations.

Promise at Dawn

The late Lithuanian-French novelist and writer Romain Gary was called many things in his life: a fabulist, a poor Jew, a literary genius, a born statesman. In this adaptation of his autobiographical novel, Romain is presented as the son of a fervent single mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) whose ambitions for him are darkened by narcissism. We see both the value and the price of her grandiose dreams, which Romain is forced to adopt as his own.

The Mossad

Considered one of the elite intelligence agencies in the world, the Mossad was created in 1949 as an insurance policy to defend the state of Israel. Utilizing intimate interviews, first person accounts, startling archival photographs and news footage, some leading figures in Israel’s intelligence community reveal their successes, failures and near misses. Although many were reluctant to discuss highly sensitive topics with the media, the cold calculations of their secret operations gradually unfold.

Who Will Write Our History

PALO ALTO OPENING NIGHT. In the Warsaw Ghetto, a group of activists secretly collected eyewitness accounts, diaries and photographs that told the history of the war from the perspective of the Jews. These archives are now finally revealed to the world. Told through a combination of archival footage, photographs and masterful reenactments, the film is a stirring paean to these prescient individuals and a celebration of their optimism, persistence and grit.

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.

Jews in Shorts: Documentaries

Truth can be found in the oddest places. This year’s collection of documentary shorts finds moments of epiphany whether it be in a fast food restaurant, performing in a death metal band, in a truck loaded with Israeli bananas traveling to Gaza, unexpected success in a Crown Heights ultra-Orthodox community, or contemplating loss while gazing at a sugar maple tree in Atlanta.

Red Cow

In East Jerusalem, Benny is an outsider. She has red hair and she chooses to indulge in poetry and pot. When beautiful newcomer Yael arrives in their small community, Benny smolders with a strange new fire and her life becomes undone. While remaining specific to its location and community, Red Cow highlights the universal desire of first lust and the feeling of being alive for the first time.

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.

Playing God

How much is a life worth? What is the monetary value of a livelihood lost to 9/11? How do you put a price on losses of this magnitude? These are the questions Kenneth Feinberg routinely wrestles with in his role as the overseer of funds disbursing tens of billions of dollars for damage claims and death benefits. He inhabits a unique role in the American legal system, where everything—including a life—has a price.

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.

Simon & Théodore

Simon has a loving wife, a baby on the way and a self-harm problem. Théodore has a bar mitzvah approaching, an absentee father and a penchant for violence. When these two wander together in the streets of Paris over the course of one long night getting angry, scared and close, they lean on each other and attempt to help one another fill in their own blanks before it is too late.

Winter Hunt

A young girl goes to a house in the woods to hold the old man, a former Nazi, and his adult daughter hostage. The tension spikes in a series of skillfully directed scenes that depict the balance of power as it shifts between accused and accusers. This harrowing thriller touches upon historical trauma and will make you question who is the hunter and who is the hunted before coming to a shocking and explosive ending.

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