Here’s a preview of the 36th annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF36), which opens tomorrow, July 21, and runs through August 7 at five locations throughout the Bay Area. The festival offers a broad range of film experiences:
- 51 features (33 Documentaries, 18 Narratives) from 13 countries (but mostly from the US and Israel).
- 2 programs of short films (Jews in Shorts), a web series and first two episodes of the miniseries False Flag.
- 14 world, North American or US premieres.
- celebrity appearances by Norman Lear, Robert Klein, Adam (s0n of Leonard) Nimoy and a passel of filmmakers.
Here are my four top recommendations:
- The documentary The Last Laugh explores humor and the Holocaust. Is there anything funny about Nazis or about the Holocaust itself? When is humor acceptable, therapeutic, transgressive or even taboo? How has the passage of time affected what is funny? And does it matter who tells the joke? We hear from Mel Brooks, Sarah Silverman, Rob and Carl Reiner, Joan Rivers, concentration camp survivor and Hogan’s Heroes star Robert Clary and, most unforgettably, Holocaust survivor Renee Firestone.
- An addictive taste of the Israeli miniseries False Flag, a character-driven thriller with elements of the whodunit, the paranoid thriller, the perfect crime movie and the espionage procedural.
- The world premiere of Wrestling Jerusalem, an imaginative examination of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the perspectives of seventeen distinct characters, both Jew and Arab, in a one-man play.
- Fever at Dawn – an epic romance with both an exploration of identity and a moral choice.
One of the most appealing features of the SFJFF is that, wherever you live in the Bay Area, the fest comes to you. SFJFF will present 27-51 films at each of the main venues – the Castro in San Francisco, CineArts in Palo Alto and the Roda Theater at the Berkeley Rep. The festival will also screen at least 14 movies at both the Rafael in San Rafael and the Piedmont in Oakland.
Of my top picks, False Flag and Wrestling Jerusalem will screen in San Francisco, Berkeley, Palo Alto and San Rafael. The Last Laugh will be playing at the Castro and the Roda. Fever at Dawn will screen in San Francisco, Berkeley and Palo Alto.
You can peruse the entire program and buy tickets and passes at San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. The fest also offers a handy iPhone app available from the App Store: sjff36. You can follow the Festival on Twitter at @SFJewish Film; and, of course, you can follow my coverage at @themoviegourmet.
