San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 2015

[Chris Knipp]

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 35 --- 23 July-9 August 2015

General Forum notice and discussion thread

"But if Jews invented Hollywood (and yes, we did)," says a web page "Best Jewish Film Festivals," "then why do we need Jewish film festivals at all, let alone 80 of them, scattered across the 50 states like so many kosher delis?" They answer, because Hollywood is about being white and Christian, and never really properly represents Jews and Jewishness, which of course is true.

San Francesco's is said to be the "world's first and largest Jewish film festival" and is organized by the Jewish Film Institute. The Best Jewish Film Festivals page calls the SFJFF "the first and foremost," though it calls the New York fest "the classiest." "You can’t get classier than Lincoln Center, and you can’t get a richer variety of educated fans than those among its regular audiences." I might add that this Walter Reade Theater audience is getting pretty old, a problem Lincoln Center faces. The "Best" page calls and the Miami one the "best winter escape." You might consider San Francisco's the "best summer escape," since it might allow you to be cool in July and early August when Miami and New York are becoming steamy.

I will be covering a few more of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival films this year than last and plan on reviewing the titles listed below. The offerings as usual are impressive. See the SFJFF website here.

​As I Am: The Life and Times of DJ AM (Kevin Kerslake). A pop music, media, and addiction documentary of the short life of DJ Adam Goldstein, who became famous and influential and died young of drugs.

Dealing With the Devil (Stéphane Bentura). An investigation of Hildebrand Gurlitt, the Jewish Dresden art dealer commissioned by Joseph Goebbels to sell off "degenerate art" prized out of the hands of Jewish collectors.

Finsterworld (Frauke Finsterwalder 2013) A dark satire and anthology film of interconnected people in different places, commenting on the present state of Germany; first feature by a documentary filmmaker.

The Law/La loi: le combat d'une femme pour toutes les femmes (Christian Faure). This French film has Emmanuelle Devos playing Simone Veil, the French health minister in the mid-Seventies largely responsible for the legalization of abortion in France in 1975. This narrative feature seeks to give legal and political maneuvering the edge of a film noir.

Mind/Game: The Unquiet Journey of Chamique Holdsclaw (Rick Goldsmith) A documentary about the black female NBA star who developed mental problems and later became an advocate for more understanding and acceptance of such issues. Narrated by Glenn Close.

​​Mr. Kaplan (Álvaro Brechner). Genial aging drama and buddy picture of 76-year-old Polish refugee in Uruguay who launches a Quixotic scheme to capture an imagined local Nazi and turn him over to Israel for trial like Eichmann.

​​​​The Muses of Isaac Bashevis Singer (Shaul Betser, Asaf Galay). Maybe "mistresses" is more like it. This documentary talks about this storyteller who became a famous "American" author writing in Yiddish. A ladies man, he tended to carry his relations with his numerous female translators beyond the linguistic.

​​​My Shortest Love Affair/Ma plus courte histoire d'amour (Karin Albou) Centerpiece film, a narrative feature about nine months in the lives of two French forty-somethings who are a couple reuniting after twenty years apart and try to make it work this time.

​​Projections of America (Peter Miller) A short documentary about a series of short films to promote America abroad made as part of the war effort by Robert Riskin and reflecting a Jewish leftish outlook. Riskin is chiefly known for his 1937 Best Screenplay Oscar for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Narrated by John Lithgow.

Villa Touma (Suha Arraf) This Palestine-based drama depicts three unmarried Christian Arab sisters living in a West Bank estate and clinging to past glory. Their fantasy is interrupted by the arrival of an orphaned niece, Badia, whom they take in. Badia disrupts things when she falls in love with a good looking Muslim singer.

Women in Sink (Iris Zaki) The filmmaker, an Israeli woman, takes a job as a "shampoo girl" in the Christian Arab section of Haifa, Wadi Nisnas, her position gaining her access to many customers' stories of personal experiences.

Also, already reviewed as part of the SFIFF 2015: Very Semi-Serious (Leah Wolchok), doc about the New Yorker magazine cartoonists and their current editor, Bob Mankoff.