Festivals

The SFJFF is here

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Photo caption: Amer Hlehel and Ashraf Farah in Maha Haj’s MEDITERRANEAN FEVER at the SLO Film Fest Courtesy of San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF) always a major event for Bay Area cinephiles, opens today. The SFJFF is the world’s oldest and largest Jewish film festival, and the program offers over 60 films from Israel, Palestine, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Cyprus, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, the US and the UK. Here’s my festival preview.

This year, I’m recommending three comedies.

  • Mediterranean Fever: A depressive writer becomes friends with his shady neighbor and the two embark on a dark journey. Second feature for Israeli Arab director Maha Haj. Although it’s dark and funny, I don’t want to describe Mediterranean Fever, like I do many films, as “darkly funny” because the tone is singular. Haj has written a story about that unfunniest of topics, depression, and keeps us watching with subtle, observational humor.  In Mediterranean Fever, we glimpse into the day-to-day life of Israeli Arabs – and middle-class Israeli Arabs at that. Won the Un Certain Regard screenplay prize at Cannes. Here’s my full review.
  • The Monkey House: This witty, twisty comedy is the latest from popular and prolific Israeli writer-director Avi Nesher. Set in pre-Internet 1989, novelist Amitay (Adir Miller) has gone a long time without a best seller, and sees his literary legacy fading. His ego is uplifted by an American grad student who plans to publish about his body of work; but, when that falls through, Amitay plans an elaborate ruse – he hires the flighty, wannabe actress Margo (Suzanna Papian) to impersonate the grad student. Plenty of unanticipated complications threaten to derail the scheme and humiliate Amitay, especially to his recently-widowed, longtime crush Tamar (Shani Cohen). Nesher, evidently a gimlet-eyed observer of human behavior, delivers lots of plot twists in this smart and funny movie. Nominated for 11 Israeli Academy Awards.
  • Between the Temples: In Nathan Silver’s comedy, Jason Schwartzman plays a cantor whose wife’s death the year before has plunged him into despair; he is so paralyzed by depression, he has even lost his ability to sing. He has a chance meeting with his childhood music teacher (Carol Kane), now a retired widow. Despite her age and his resistance, she insists on joining the bat mitzvah class he teaches at the temple. She’s a force of nature and may have enough gusto to overcome his angst. As their friendship evolves, will it bring him out of his funk? There are plenty of LOL moments. Kane is excellent, and so is Madeleine Weinstein as the rabbi’s lovelorn daughter. Dolly De Leon, who stole Triangle of Sadness, sparkles as a relentlessly determined Jewish mother.

The SFJFF runs through August 4 in select San Francisco and Oakland venues. Peruse the program and purchase tickets at SFJFF. Here’s the trailer for Between the Temples.

Good news for cinephiles – the SFJFF is back

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Photo caption: Carol Kane as Carla Kessler, Jason Schwartzman as Ben Gottlieb in BETWEEN THE TEMPLES. Image: Sean Price Williams. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

One of the Bay Area’s top cinema events is back – the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), running from July 18 to August 4. The SFJFF is the world’s oldest and largest Jewish film festival, and the program offers over 60 films from Israel, Palestine, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Cyprus, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, the US and the UK.

This year’s festival (the 44th!) expands to eighteen days and six Bay Area venues. Films will screen at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts, Vogue and Roxie, and Oakland’s Landmark Piedmont Theater, as well as additional programming at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.

The SFJFF is a major Jewish cultural event held against the backdrop of current events in Israel and Gaza, and the SFJFF is leaning right into what would otherwise be the elephant in the room.

At SFJFF44, JFI is dedicated to maintaining a respectful environment for filmmakers and audiences from diverse cultures and perspectives to reflect on the current climate through the lens of domestic and international filmmakers, including Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers and collaborative projects.

Over the last 44 years, SFJFF has presented many groundbreaking films that probe the unexpected and nuanced corners of history, identity, and artmaking to create opportunities for audiences and artists alike to look closely at the complexity all around them. At SFJFF44, JFI is dedicated to maintaining a respectful environment for filmmakers and audiences from diverse cultures and perspectives to reflect on the current climate through the lens of Israeli, Palestinian, and domestic/international filmmakers. Audiences are invited to ask questions, find solidarity in community, and experience multiple programs (to be announced) which will exist in dialogue with one another to explore the past and present complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    I’ve been covering the SFJFF since 2016, I’m not Jewish and I can attest that this attitude is nothing new. I’ve seen SFJFF films with Palestinian voices, by Palestinian and Israeli Arab filmmakers, and about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    Amer Hlehel and Ashraf Farah in Maha Haj’s MEDITERRANEAN FEVER. Courtesy of SFJFF.

    My favorite film at this year’s SFJFF is Mediterranean Fever, from Israeli Arab director Maha Haj, whose story glimpses into the day-to-day life of Israeli Arabs – and middle-class Israeli Arabs at that. It’s a character-driven dark comedy, and I’ll be writing about it on Thursday.

    At previous SFJFFs, I’ve found very strong documentaries: What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, Satan & Adam, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, The Mossad, Levinsky Park, Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me, Charm Circle and Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy.

    This year, the SFJFF presents a strong menu of comedies, including Mediterranean Fever. The Centerpiece Narrative is Between The Temples, starring Jason Schwartzman as a cantor experiencing a crisis of faith and Carol Kane as his childhood music teacher and adult Bat Mitzvah student. Between the Temples generated buzz at its premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Kane (Hester Street, Annie Hall, The Princess Bride) is a force of nature, and Dolly De Leon (Triangle of Sadness) sparkles as a relentlessly determined Jewish mother.

    I’ll be posting my SFJFF recommendations on Thursday. Peruse the program and purchase tickets at SFJFF. Here’s the festival trailer.

    Frameline is back, with two international gems and a groundbreaking classic

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    Photo caption: GONDOLA Courtesy of Frameline.

    Frameline, the oldest and longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival in the world, opens tomorrow, June 19 and runs through June 29. The program includes over 120 screenings from around the globe, curated from over 1,600 submissions and invitations. Frameline films will be presented in San Francisco’s Roxie Theater, the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, the Herbst Theatre and the Vogue Theatre, and Oakland’s The New Parkway Theater.

    As always, Frameline’s program is very rich. I’ve selected three films to highlight – two highly inventive nuggets from international cinema and the restoration of a groundbreaker.

    Gondola: This charming comedy is the work of a unique filmmaker, German writer-director Veit Helmer, who has been making dialogue-free films in Central Asian nations for a decade. A gondola links two mountainsides in rural Georgia, and the two female gondola operators fall in love as they pass each other over the valley. It’s remarkable how Helmer is able to pack so many story elements into a film without dialogue. (I also love Helmer’s The Bra, which I tagged as just your average silent Azerbaijani comedy.) Gondola is ever funny, sweet and imaginative.

    Bruna Linzmeyer and Mirella Façanha in CIDADE; CAMPO. Courtesy of Frameline.

    Cidade; Campo: Frameline hosts the North American premiere of this third feature by Brazilian auteur Juliana Rojas, which won her the Encounters Best Director prize at the Berlinale. There are two female-centered stories of relocation between city and countryside. One woman, forced from her rural home by a flood, moves to Sao Paolo with her sister and her vulnerable, floundering grandson; she takes an office cleaning job and joins her so-workers to push for better conditions. In the other story, a woman inherits her estranged father’s farm and moves to the sticks with her partner. She discovers that he was working with ayahuasca in an impossible business climate. The lengthy, robust sex scene will be talked about, both for its duration and its body positivity. Rojas anchors each story in in often harsh reality, but but explores grief by dotting them with the supernatural.

    Guinevere Turner and V.S. Brodie in GO FISH. Courtesy of Frameline.

    Go Fish: This pioneering lesbian classic by writer-director Rose Troche and writer-star Guinevere Turner exploded at the 1994 Sundance. Funded by Frameline’s Completion Fund Grant, a new 4K restoration will screen at the Palace of Fine Arts to celebrate its 30th anniversary. (BTW, if you get a chance to see the new doc Chasing Chasing Amy, not at Frameline, Guinevere Turner discusses the Go Fish experience at Sundance.) Both Troche and Turner are expected to appear at the Frameline screening.

    There are over 100 other offerings in the Frameline48 program. Peruse the program and purchase tickets at Frameline48. Here’s the trailer for Gondola.