The 38th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, presented by the Jewish Film Institute, returns July 19–August 5, 2018 in five Bay Area cities. SFJFF is the largest Jewish cultural event in Northern California and the Bay Area’s annual celebration of excellence in independent cinema that showcases the diversity of global Jewish life. See complete film…
Children’s book author Judy Blume has been diagnosed with cancer. She revealed the news in an apology on her blog to fans who had hoped to meet her at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival in July. She did not stick around after the premier of ‘Tiger Eyes’ (adapted from her 1981 novel and directed…
“The Queen Has No Crown,” Tomer Heymann’s devoutly personal look at family, gay identity, and homelessness, is a document of the ideological and geographical peregrinations of one Israeli family. Recently screened at the JCC in Manhattan as part of its Feigele Film Festival, and showing August 7 at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the…
Last week, we provided a guide to the first week of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, based on our previous film coverage on The Arty Semite and in the Arts & Culture section of the Forward. Running until August 8, the Festival has plenty of great programming in its second half as well, much…
Courtesy of Go2Films One is tempted to declare that “Torn,” the documentary by Israeli filmmaker Ronit Kertsner making its American debut at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, is about the “Who is a Jew?” question. It is. But it is also about more than that. The film tells the story of Romuald Jakub Weksler-Waszkinel,…
It’s the rare Jewish community that doesn’t have its own Jewish film festival these days, and major events happen each year in cities like New York, Boston and Atlanta. But the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, founded in 1980, is the granddaddy of them all. Starting today and continuing over the next two-and-a-half weeks, the…
Though Sholem Aleichem is widely known for his depictions of Eastern European shtetl life, the famed Yiddish writer spent a number of years living and writing in America. In a new documentary titled “Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness,” director Joseph Dorman details the life of Sholem Aleichem, from his early successes to his many,…
Tearful laughter, raunchy story telling, and punchy witticisms are not the typical ingredients one expects to find in a tribute to a late literary legend. Then again, Grace Paley and ‘typical’ never met. Last Tuesday the Center for Jewish History and Jewish Women’s Archive paid homage to the poet, short story writer and political activist,…
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