One of the Bay Area’s top cinema events is back – the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF) , running through August 6 at the Castro, the Piedmont and the Vogue. The SFJFF is the world’s oldest and largest Jewish film festival, and the program offers 68 films from 18 countries. Here are four movies to seek out:
- Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy: This remarkably insightful documentary explores the making of Midnight Cowboy and its place both in cinema and in American culture. Midnight Cowboy won Oscars for Best Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay, all with an X-rating. Sure, we know Midnight Cowboy as a groundbreaking film, but Desperate Souls argues that it both reflected the zeitgeist of the moment and opened new possibilities in American filmmaking. Filmmaker Nancy Buirski builds her case with superb sourcing, including the unique perspective of Jennifer Salt who observed her father, screenwriter Waldo Salt, and director John Schlesinger birth the film; she also acted in the movie and came to date its star, Jon Voight. Voight himself bookends the film with emotionally powerful reflections.
- Erica Jong: Breaking the Wall: Erica Jong, celebrity author of bestsellers and popularizer of feminist and erotic writing, has led a fascinating life, and documentarian Kaspar Kasics has the good sense to let a great storyteller unspool her own story. We get a full dose of Erica Jong, both in contemporary footage and in archival television interviews. For all her notoriety, Jong has consistently served as what we used to call a public intellectual (and now call a thought leader). Jong is remarkably prescient in her 20th century television interviews (and faced some cringeworthy sexism from the likes of David Susskind and Merv Griffin). Kasics also lets us hear Jong and her sister recalling their unusual childhood and gives us a glimpse inside Jong’s current marriage.
- My Neighbor Adolph: In this wry fable from Russian-born Israeli filmmaker Leon Prudovsky, chess master Polsky (David Hayman) has lost all his family in the Holocaust. Consumed by grief and bitterness, he lives the life of a misanthropic recluse in a remote South American countryside. Polsky is rocked when the long-vacant house next door becomes occupied by a mysterious German (the piercing-eyed Ugo Kier), who Polsky becomes convinced is Adolph Hitler himself. To convince skeptical authorities of his theory, Polsky must get past his terror and loathing to personally engage with the neighbor. A battle of wits between two strong-willed men ensues, and Hayman and Kier are superb.
- The Secret of Human Flight: Always expect something we’ve never seen before from director H.P. Mendoza, this time working from a screenplay by Jesse Orenshein. Ben (Grant Rodenmeyer) is shocked by the sudden death of his wife and writing partner (Rena Hardesty). His grief plunges the neurotic Ben into psychosis and he is vulnerable enough to embrace a self-help guru (Paul Raci – Oscar-nominated for his unforgettable performance in The Sound of Metal as a tough rehab counselor for the hearing-impaired). Everyone except Ben can see red flags blaring that this purported mystic is really a con man – he has only one handwritten copy of the book that he hawks on infomercial videos, he lives in an RV with New Mexico plates and his name is Mealworm. H.P. Mendoza is a Bay Area treasure, having written and directed the rollicking and refreshing comedy Colma: The Musical, the genre-bending art film I Am a Ghost and the topical dark comedy Bitter Melon. (Watch for a cameo by L.A. Renigen, star of Colma: A Musical.) Check out bits of Raci’s performance in the irresistible trailer below.