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AN FRANCISCO, June 20, 2017 – The Jewish Film Institute (JFI) is pleased to announce that in collaboration with The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF) is pleased to present
Exodus: A Sidebar on the Refugee Experience as part of the 37th edition of the festival.
The sidebar will screen films that examine the experience of refugees and underscore the similarities between past and contemporary xenophobia, populism and extreme nationalism. Films in the program include:
An official selection 2017 Sundance Film Festival,
THE GOOD POSTMAN is Tonislav Hristov’s absorbing documentary, which follows a postman in a small town in Bulgaria who runs for mayor under the platform of welcoming Syrian refugees. The outcome of the election (decided by less than 50 voters) soon takes on the trappings of a high drama campaign and shows the uneasy confrontation of a small village with the wider world during a time of humanitarian crisis.
In a year that saw over one million refugees arrive in Germany, filmmaker Pia Lenz follows the families of Djaner, a 7-year-old Roma boy, and Ghofran, an 11-year-old girl from Syria, as they settle in their adoptive home of Hamburg, Germany. But settled their lives are not, as revealed in this longitudinal portrait of coming of age while one’s homeland is coming apart.
I’M OKAY examines conflicts writ large and small, tender and tragic, over the course of a year, while the brave young protagonists gamely search for themselves in their new world, brought about by dissolution.
LEVINSKY PARK tells the stories of residents, refugees and activists in the Levinsky Park neighborhood of Tel Aviv, Israel. Through the lens of an asylum seeker from Darfur, long time residents of the community, and a human rights activist, director Beth Toni Kruvant explores the contours and nuances of the refugee story. Particular to Israel’s refugee history, the film examines the subtle ways in which unrest exacerbates community tensions uncovering the global crisis pervading the world today.
The Opening Night film of IDFA 2016,
STRANGER IN PARADISE offers three takes on immigration in Europe from an aggressive right-wing tabloid, a more human liberal stance and finally, a classroom of real-life migrants who are told how their cases may be handled. Operating at the intersection of fiction and documentary, STRANGER IN PARADISE reflects on the power relations between Europeans and refugees in a candid fashion.
Following the Castro screening of
STRANGER IN PARADISE, SFJFF is pleased to present a panel discussion on the refugee and immigration crisis with experts in the field, featuring Mark Hetfield, Executive Director of HIAS; Amy Weiss, Director of Refugee and Immigrant Services, Jewish Family and Children's Services of the East Bay; Subhi Nahas, Syrian refugee and LGBTQ activist. The panel will be moderated by Michael Krasny, host of KQED Forum and is free and open to the public with RSVP or with purchase of a ticket to Stranger in Paradise.
VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED, the 1976 Hollywood classic starring Faye Dunaway, Orson Welles, Lee Grant, Malcolm McDowell, Jonathan Pryce, Max Von Sydow and Katharine Ross was inspired by the true story of the MS St. Louis ocean liner carrying Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany to Cuba in 1939.
Entering its 37th year, the Festival is expecting an audience of over 40,000 moviegoers at the following theaters; the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, the Landmark Albany Twin in Albany, the CinéArts Theatre in Palo Alto, the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, and the New Parkway Theater in Oakland.
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