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Simon & Théodore

Over the course of one night in the streets of Paris Simon and Théodore learn how to accept themselves.

Six Million and One

Israeli filmmaker David Fisher initiates a road trip that becomes an extraordinary family psychodrama for his siblings at the site of the World War II concentration camp where their father Joseph was interned as a young boy. Traveling in a van they laugh at themselves and question their own willingness to go deeper into their family legacy. Stunningly beautiful forests and meadows silently conceal the reality of their father’s untold story. [MINIGUIDE 71/70]

Six Minutes to Midnight

Eddie Izzard and Dame Judi Dench star in this thrilling Hitchockian homage to British spy cinema. In the summer of 1939, influential families in Nazi Germany have sent their daughters to a finishing school in an English seaside town where one of the professors soon uncovers their diabolical scheme and races to tell the truth. But who can he trust?

Sleeping With the Fishes

Alexis Fish’s life is a mess: Her husband is dead, her once successful party planning business is no more and anti-anxiety pills are the only thing keeping her going. When an aunt dies, she must return home and face her ever-disapproving mother and her well-intentioned but overzealous big sister. Writer/director Nicole Gomez Fisher’s delightful debut brings this quirky story of a dysfunctional yet loving Latino Jewish family to uproarious life.

A Small Act

Can a single act of generosity transform a life? As a poor Kenyan boy, Chris Mburu’s life changed forever when a Jewish schoolteacher in Sweden anonymously sponsored his education. Today a Harvard-educated lawyer, he honors his benefactor (and now friend) by providing scholarships in her name to a new generation of promising but desperately poor Kenyan children. A Small Act rivetingly celebrates this inspiring example of “paying it forward.”

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.

Snowy

Snowy, a four-inch-long pet turtle, has lived an isolated life in the family basement. With help from a team of experts and his caretaker, Uncle Larry, we ask: Can Snowy be happy, and what would it take?

The "Socalled" Movie

Meet Socalled (aka Josh Dolgin): musician, arranger, rapper, producer, composer, magician, filmmaker and visual artist, to name just a few of his talents! Blasting through boundaries separating different cultures, eras and generations, Socalled creates a wholly unique sound combining klezmer, funk, soul and hip-hop. Not too shabby for a nice Jewish boy from Montreal. This is a dynamic, kaleidoscopic portrait of an iconoclastic artist at the peak of his powers. Followed by live performance

Son of Saul

Saul Ausländer is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners isolated from the camp and forced to assist the Nazis in the machinery of large-scale extermination. While working in one of the crematoriums, Saul discovers the body of a boy he takes for his son.

Spartacus

SFJFF Freedom of Expression honoree Kirk Douglas is gladiator Spartacus, leader of a slave revolt in pre-Christian Rome, in Stanley Kubrick’s restored widescreen spectacle. Two politically committed leftists, Jewish novelist Howard Fast and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, wrote and adapted this epic that went on to win four Academy Awards. In a heroic revolt of his own, star and producer Douglas insisted on giving rightful credit to Red Scare target Trumbo, effectively ending the Hollywood blacklist.

Stalin Thought of You

A portrait of 105-year-old Russian political cartoonist Boris Efimov, whose pointed caricatures filled the pages of satirical magazines from Lenin’s time to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union, Kevin McNeer’s fascinating documentary relates the riveting tale of Efimov’s relationship with brutal dictator Josef Stalin and the tragic fall of his beloved brother, Mikhail. A dizzying, deeply moving chronicle of two siblings and one dictator whose crossed paths illuminate the story of a nation.

Standing Up, Falling Down

An unlikely, multigenerational friendship between a failed comedian and a charming, alcoholic dermatologist helps both confront long-simmering regrets in this warm-hearted buddy comedy.

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.

Streit's: Matzo and the American Dream

Just as its iconic pink box has graced Passover seder tables for generations of American Jews, so, too, Streit’s matzo factory has stood for some 80 years on the Lower East Side. For many Jews, a family business has been a way to make a living and a way to ensure that the next generation could do better. This is all challenged by the need for modernity, the pressures of foreign competition and enticing real estate offers. —Sara L. Rubin

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.

Sukkah City

In September 2010 New Yorkers were delighted by the overnight appearance of a temporary sukkah city erected in Union Square. These were the winning entrants from a global architectural competition designed to reimagine the humble sukkah. Featuring luminaries such as Michael Arad, Paul Goldberger and Maira Kalman, Sukkah City chronicles the process of judging the entrants and the drama that ensued as the winning teams shifted from concept to construction.

Summer of '85 | NEXT WAVE SPOTLIGHT

In this sun-drenched romance-turned-tragedy, celebrated French auteur François Ozon brings us to the coast of Normandy. Over the course of a summer, the chemistry between Alex and Davis burns as their budding romance gives way to a dangerous obsession. Mixing camp, queerness and thriller elements, this gorgeous 1980’s period piece will make you want to dance to 80’s disco music, while sitting on the edge of your couch.

Sweater

Corey's day couldn't be worse. Then he gets a free coffee.

The Sweetest Sound

About This Film

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 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.

Tehilim

A father’s mysterious disappearance throws his family into a spiritual crisis in this engrossing, beautifully acted drama set in modern Jerusalem. Uncertain if Eli is dead or alive, his family copes with their confusion in ways that test their faith and love. Wife Alma, a secular Jew, chafes when her observant in-laws insist on ritual prayers (tehilim), while her young sons embark on a religious scheme that precipitates a moral crisis.

Tel Aviv On Fire | CENTERPIECE NARRATIVE

Salam, an inexperienced young Palestinian man, becomes a writer on a popular soap opera after a chance meeting with an Israeli soldier. His creative career is on the rise - until the soldier and the show's financial backers disagree about how the show should end, and Salam is caught in the middle.

The Tenth Man

Ariel lives in New York, far from the lively Jewish district in Buenos Aires where he grew up. But when his father summons him back home for help, Ariel reluctantly returns. The Tenth Man is a kindhearted comedy with a gentle romantic touch. Director Daniel Burman (All In, SFJFF 2012) joyfully upends the old adage that you can never go home again and instead says, maybe under the right circumstances, you can. —Jay Rosenblatt

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