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Filtered By: SFJFF 2005 Clear All

Best Picture, 2004 Israeli Academy Awards. Rachel, a recently widowed mother of two rebellious teenage girls, hopes to start a new life by joining a religious settlement in the West Bank. But she must first win over the community’s leader, who is threatened by her independence. A nuanced, moving drama.

A classic better appreciated decades after its release, The Front is a comedy about a deadly serious subject. Woody Allen portrays a somewhat naïve front for a trio of blacklisted television writers; Zero Mostel, in a role based partly on his own story, plays a Blacklist victim who cannot betray his Jewishness. Walter Bernstein got a much-deserved Oscar® nomination for Best Screenplay.

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.

The Darwish brothers are Iraqi Jews who run an Israeli menorah factory. Beyond that, nothing is simple in My Fantasia as the filmmaker probes the family secrets of his silent father and quirky uncles.

Odessa...Odessa!

Odessa...Odessa!

Odessa...Odessa! is a poetic journey to find the Jewish soul of Odessa, Ukraine, moving poignantly from Odessa today to Brighton Beach and to Ashdod, Israel.

Dana Ivgy headlines this powerful drama, which won the Camera d’Or at Cannes and earned Ivgy the Israeli Oscar for Best Actress. With graphic intimacy, Or takes us inside the private lives of Or (Ivgy) and her working-class mother Ruthie (veteran actress Ronit Elkabetz). Or is desperately trying to convince her mother to stop working as a prostitute, but after 20 years in the business, Ruthie finds her options narrowing.

Silence shrouded the death of filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt’s little brother four decades ago; Phantom Limb is his haunting and healing meditation on postponed grief.

Rashevski's Tango

Rashevski's Tango

Rosa Rashevski believed that tango could heal the body better than chicken soup. She is the catalyst for considerable family drama in Rashevski’s Tango, a charming ensemble feature by Belgian director Sam Garbarski. Set in Paris, the film is a portrait of three generations of a Jewish family wrestling with issues of identity, love and interfaith marriage after the death of matriarch Rosa.Rosa’s sons Simon and David struggle with their abandonment by their father, who left Rosa decades ago to become Orthodox and move to Israel. Simon and his Christian wife Isabelle fight over whether he will be buried in a Jewish cemetery. Their daughter Nina is falling in love with Antoine, who isn’t Jewish (but at least knows how to tango!). Meanwhile, Rosa’s grandson is in love with a Muslim woman. From the generation who lived through the Shoah, to their children and grandchildren, Rashevski’s Tango delivers laughs, tears and romance with its nuanced script and stellar performances.

The Talent Given Us

The Talent Given Us

Family road trips should be illegal. But then you would miss out on one of the wackiest, fun-house-mirrored, rollicking rides of your life with this family, their meshugas flapping from their mini-van like so many damp bathing suits. Sundance hit The Talent Given Us is Wagner’s narrative feature film about a New York Jewish family, which happens to star his New York Jewish family.

West Bank Story

West Bank Story

Nothing is sacred in this parody of a musical comedy, set in the fast-food world of competing falafel stands in the West Bank. David, an Israeli soldier, falls in love with Fatima, the beautiful Palestinian cashier at the neighboring chickpea purveyor. This Sundance hit would have Shakespeare and Leonard Bernstein either spinning in their graves--or tapping their toes.

Ydessa,The Bears and Etc.

Ydessa,The Bears and Etc.

Pioneering French New Wave director Agnès Varda’s portrait of an eccentric art collector turns darkly mysterious when her collection of teddy bears photos is displayed in an infamous Munich gallery.

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