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Filtered By: SFJFF 2014 Clear All

10% - What Makes a Hero?

10% - What Makes a Hero?

Checkpoint (SFJFF 2004) and Defamation (SFJFF 2009) established Israeli documentarian Yoav Shamir as an unapologetic provocateur. Michael Moore executive produced the filmmaker’s newest film, a globetrotting quest to identify the shared characteristics of heroic individuals. From a bonobo preserve in Congo to the suburban home of a Flemish woman whose family harbored Jews during WWII, Shamir takes viewers on a fascinating journey that is sure to spark thoughtful conversation and passionate debate.

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.

Above and Beyond: The Birth of the Israeli Air Force

Above and Beyond: The Birth of the Israeli Air Force

This gripping documentary unfolds like The Great Escape, a true-life wartime adventure story. Produced by Nancy Spielberg and directed by Roberta Grossman (Hava Nagila: The Movie, SFJFF 2012), it celebrates the daring young pilots who volunteered to fly for Israel in the war of 1948. Though their planes were WWII junk heaps, their flight suits Nazi discards, their bravery and skill helped turn the tide of the war.

In this whimsical romantic comedy, Arlo and Julie are a young couple adrift in Austin, whose lives are upended when Julie starts to receive mysterious packages in the mail. Each one contains more pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle. As they try to solve the mystery, they descend into an obsession that threatens to change everything. The result is an uplifting, surprisingly moving exploration of art and history, love, trust and faith. preceded by A Knock at the Door

Comedy Warriors

Comedy Warriors

Five disabled Iraq/Afghanistan vets bring their painful life-altering experiences onstage, transforming tragedy into brutally fierce comedy gold, mentored by mirth masters Bob Saget, Zach Galifinakis and Lewis Black. With only days to prepare, the five are flown to Hollywood for a gig at LA’s famous Punch Line club. The big night finds the comedy warriors comprehending the healing power of humor and discovering that their lives are about to take an unexpected direction. Followed by live standup comedy by subject Joe Kashnow.

Víctor Tellez is jaded, emotionally repressed and arrogant. Not surprisingly, he is an influential but harsh film critic for a daily newspaper. Victor especially detests Hollywood romantic comedies until he meets Sofía, a spontaneous and vibrant woman. He finds himself going soft, and his movie reviews reflect this. El Critico is intelligent, funny, delightful and ultimately succumbs to the genre Víctor so derisively abhors. Love conquers all, even this cynical snob.

As a 13-year-old, Matthew Boger was thrown out of his home for being gay. While living on the streets of Hollywood, he was savagely beaten in a back alley by a group of neo-Nazis. Twenty-five years later, Boger finds himself in a chance meeting with the same neo-Nazi.

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.

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 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.

Havana Curveball

Havana Curveball

What does it mean to become a man on the occasion of your bar mitzvah? Bay Area filmmakers Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider (Return of Sarah’s Daughters, SFJFF 1997) follow their thirteen-year-old Mica as he struggles to make good on his commitment to deliver baseball equipment to kids in Cuba. Eventually, he gets to play ball in Cuba as well as experience the satisfactions and disappointments associated with being a benefactor to those less fortunate. preceded by Some vacation.[

Gripping from start to finish, Holy Land documents the lives of those who call the West Bank home as you’ve never seen them before. Following three Israelis and three Palestinians, from an ultra-orthodox Jewish settler to a left-wing Israeli activist to a young Palestinian protestor, over the course of a year, this fascinating documentary paints a complex portrait of the people who live, fight and sometimes die for the land they consider holy.

A Life in Dirty Movies

A Life in Dirty Movies

A Life in Dirty Movies is an affectionate documentary about legendary sexploitation director Joe Sarno, “the Ingmar Bergman of 42nd Street,” and his loyal wife and collaborator Peggy. The film follows the Sarnos for a year, as 88-year-old Joe struggles to get a new film project off the ground. The film’s intimate perspective reveals a filmmaker’s golden years and his hope for renewed relevance. With John Waters.

Little White Lie

Little White Lie

Daring to ask questions about her true identity, around which her parents had kept a careful silence throughout her entire childhood, filmmaker Lacey Schwartz gently but firmly pulls back the curtain on matters of race and family secrets in her deeply personal and riveting documentary. Schwartz raises larger questions for us all: What factors—race, religion, family, upbringing—make us who we are? And what happens when we are forced to redefine ourselves?

Why do some men exude an air of quiet confidence while others appear indecisive and uncertain? Filmmaker David Sampliner wants to know. He is about to become a father, and he’s worried that he’s not “man” enough to serve as his child’s guardian and protector. In My Own Man, Sampliner searches for the keys to becoming the man he wants to be by confronting his own past and embracing new challenges.

Regarding Susan Sontag

Regarding Susan Sontag

Regarding Susan Sontag reflects the boldness of Sontag’s work and the cultural importance of her thought, through extraordinary archival footage and still photographs, riveting interviews with Sontag’s friends and colleagues, and a rich tapestry of artifacts from popular culture. These are combined with creatively culled and manipulated images to create a nuanced, sophisticated portrait of a great thinker. Many Americans know Sontag’s name; the film shows us who she was, and why her thoughts about topics such as illness, photography, war, terrorism, and torture remain vitally important in the new world of the 21st century.

With the only surviving photo of Regina Jonas, filmmaker Diana Groo reconstructs the life of the world’s first female rabbi. The film poetically reveals the pleasures and chaos of Weimar and post-Weimar Germany with archival images from cabarets to the 1936 Olympics. During the Nazi era, Jonas’s sermons and her unparalleled dedication brought encouragement to persecuted German Jews. With actress Rachel Weisz as the voice of Regina. Preceded by Tzniut Through graceful and poetic use of archival footage, Diana Groo brings us a story of a person whose image is known though one photograph alone. Scenes from Jewish life in Berlin during the early twentieth century come to life: synagogues, Jewish schools, parks, streets, and newsreels permeate the film, while a gentle voiceover handled expertly by Dánel Böhm and Daniel Kardos tell us this unique story. What may have seemed a challenge for a filmmaker, turns into the film’s greatest creative trait.

Srulik is running for his life. Literally. His once happy family is now dead or dispersed following the Nazi occupation of Poland, and he is alone in the world. Based on a true story, Run Boy Run tells the harrowing tale of young Srulik as he struggles to evade capture by the Nazis and ward off starvation, a harrowing story comprised in equal measures of cruelty and compassion, despair and hope.

Love, work, relationships—the Shtisels’ problems are like those of any other family, except that they happen to be haredim, ultra-religious Jews. SFJFF presents the first three episodes of this popular award-winning TV drama set in Jerusalem which has hooked viewers worldwide with its stylish production values, humor, great acting (it stars Michael Aloni, Out in the Dark, SFJFF 2013) and compelling story lines recounted with heartfelt emotion and humor.

Snails in the Rain

Snails in the Rain

In the summer of 1989 in Tel Aviv the brawny linguistics student Boaz is rattled when he receives a letter from a secret male admirer. With deeply internalized homophobia, Boaz both wildly anticipates and dreads the letters. Frustration bubbles to the surface and the tensions grows in director Yariv Mozer’s masterful first narrative feature marked by intimate flashbacks and remarkable performances by lead actors Yoav Reuveni and Moran Rosenblatt.

The Starfish Throwers

The Starfish Throwers

Three inspiring people from different corners of the world (South Carolina, Minneapolis, India) tackle the same global issue: hunger. A nine-year-old gardener, a retired school teacher and a former top chef are The Starfish Throwers, defying the cynicism of those around them while living and breathing the wisdom that we are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are we free to desist from it.

Sturgeon Queens

Sturgeon Queens

What do Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Morley Safer have in common? They each are passionate about their love for the smoked fish at Russ's Daughters. This venerable establishment has been around for 100 years, and in this humorous, heartfelt and mouthwatering documentary we meet the delightful 100-year-old and 92-year-old daughters of the store’s name and the sturgeon queens of the title. Preceded by Salomea’s Nose.

Swim Little Fish Swim

Swim Little Fish Swim

Idealistic musician Leeward and his breadwinner wife Mary share a tiny New York apartment where they raise their three-year-old daughter. When aspiring young French artist Lilas crashes on their couch and strikes a chord with at-sea Leeward, the couple’s ideological conflicts come into sharper focus. Writer/directors Ruben Amar and Lola Bessis’s first feature (and her acting debut as Lilas) is a heartfelt film about the struggle between creativity and adulthood.

The heroine of this documentary, Rebecca Gomperts, embodies tikkun olam, repairing the world through your actions. The founder of Women on Waves, Gomperts builds a floating clinic to offer abortions where the procedure is banned, but her maiden voyage ends in disaster. She changes strategy, exploiting loopholes to teach women a World Health Organization–endorsed protocol to give themselves abortions at home. Her ingeniousness makes for a surprisingly invigorating tale.

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