San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 2022 FORUM THREAD

[Chris Knipp]

SFJFF42 2022 PREVIEW


SASSON GABAY and RITA SHUKRUN IN Karaoke

SFJFF42 Showcases 71 Films Exploring Global Jewish Experience Over 10 Days of Live Screenings and 7 Days of Online Streaming

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - June 28, 2022 - The Jewish Film Institute (JFI) has announced the complete lineup for the 42nd San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), returning to the San Francisco Bay Area July 21 through August 7, 2022. The Festival, the oldest and most revered event of its kind worldwide, presents 71 films from 14 countries—narratives, documentaries, and shorts—that explore the past, present, and future of Jewish experiences and filmmaking. After two seasons of primarily online events, SFJFF42 brings its bold programming back to theatrical venues, with 10 days of screenings planned July 21–31 at the historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco and the Albany Twin Theater in Albany, followed by a selected streaming program via the JFI Digital Screening Room from August 1–7. Tickets to all programs are now on sale to Jewish Film Institute members and on sale to the general public at 10am on Thursday, June 30. Visit sfjff.org for more information.

SFJFF42 offers groundbreaking feature and short films that offer nuanced, complex perspectives on Jewish history, culture, and communities around the world. The Festival presents 5 World Premieres, 3 International Premieres, 10 North American Premieres, 3 United States Premieres, and 14 West Coast Premieres. SFJFF42 expands the Festival’s focus on the art of short filmmaking, with 31 shorts presented across 3 programs (live and online), and paired with feature films. SFJFF is the only Academy Award®-qualifying Jewish film festival for the Best Documentary Short category.

Five films at SFJFF42 are supported by the Jewish Film Institute via its Completion Grants and Filmmaker in Residence programs: My Name is Andrea (Dir. Pratibha Parmar); Remember This (Dirs. Jeff Hutchens, Derek Goldman); Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life (Dir. Patrice O’Neill); A Reel War Shalal (Dir. Karnit Mandel); and I will take your shadow (Dir. Ayala Shoshana Guy).

JFI Completion Grants provide funding to emerging and established filmmakers for bold stories that promote thoughtful consideration of Jewish history, life, culture, and identity. Launched in 2020, the Completion Grants have awarded nearly $200,000 to date to twelve projects. The third round of Grantees will be announced during a special online awards ceremony at SFJFF on Monday, August 1. The Filmmakers in Residence program is an annual, competitive artist residency that provides creative, marketing, and production support for emerging and established filmmakers in the United States with projects in all stages of production. JFI’s 2022 Residents will engage in workshops, meetings, and community programs during the Festival.

Additional highlights include 10 Special Presentations that alternately entertain, delight, provoke, and challenge established narratives and forms, from Opening Night’s Karaoke and the searing Take Action Spotlight To the End to the eye-opening Special Preview of The U.S. and the Holocaust and the virtuosic Remember This. SFJFF42 continues to spotlight Bay Area-produced films, with 10 programs directed, produced, or acted by filmmakers connected to Northern California.

OPENING NIGHT: Karaoke
Thursday, July 21 • 6:30pm • Castro Theatre
Moshe Rosenthal, 2022, Narrative, Israel, 103 minutes, Hebrew w/ English subtitles, West Coast Premiere
Meir and Tova are a Sephardic upper middle class couple, seemingly resigned to live out the rest of their semi-retirement in the banal comforts of an upscale apartment complex in a Tel Aviv suburb. When Itsik, a sexy bachelor from Miami, moves into the building’s penthouse, their lives are gleefully upended. Energized by their newfound friendship with Itsik, Meir and Tova undergo personal transformations, but will their relationship as a couple be a casualty of expressing their individual desires?

SPECIAL PREVIEW: The U.S. and the Holocaust
MOnday, July 25 • 7:30pm • Castro Theatre
Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, Lynn Novick, 2022, Documentary, USA, 45 minutes (excerpt), English
Extended conversation with Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein, moderated by Michael Krasny.
America’s response to one of the greatest humanitarian crises in history tested the ideals of democracy. This film sheds light on what the United States government and the American people knew and did as the catastrophe unfolded in Europe. By investigating events leading up to and during the Holocaust with fresh eyes, Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sara Botstein dispel the competing myths that Americans either were ignorant of what was happening to Jews in Europe, or that they merely looked on with callous indifference. The filmmakers have prepared a 45-minute special preview of the three-part (six-hour) series, which will be followed by an extended conversation moderated by Michael Krasny. Co-presented with KQED. The three-part series premieres on PBS September 18–20, 2022.

CLOSING NIGHT: Let It be Morning
Sunday, July 31 • 7:45pm • Albany Twin Theater
Eran Kolirin, 2021, Narrative, Israel/France, 101 minutes, Hebrew and Arabic w/ English subtitles
Director Eran Kolirin (The Band’s Visit, 2007), poignantly weaves a satirical story around Sami, a middle-class Palestinian businessman based in Jerusalem, and his family who are attending his brother’s wedding in the small Arabic village in Israel where he grew up. Unexpectedly, Sami’s hometown is placed under a military lockdown in a search for West Bank Palestinians living in the village, including those working on the construction of a second home for his family. Sami, now unable to return home, is torn between allegiances and forced to reassess his past and confront his future.