San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 2013

[Chris Knipp]

http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/2898/txl7.jpg (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30588#post30588)

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. http://www.sfjff.org/

Filmleaf Festival Coverage thread H E R E. (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30588#post30588)

This year for the first time thanks to screener access via Larsen Associates of San Francisco I will be reviewing or previewing some titles from this big Bay Area festival, with prsentations spread over four venues and in its 33rd year. Below are some of the titles I hope to cover. Some are short films. These are from many different countries, which will be identified in the coverage.)

Link index of Filmleaf reviews of the 2013 SFJFF:

After Tiller (Lana Wilson, Martha Shane) 2013 (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30680#post30680)
Afternoon Delight (Jill Soloway 2013) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30636#post30636)
Aliyah (Elie Wajeman) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3526-ALIYAH-%28Elie-Wajeman-2012%29-NYC-theatrical-release-%28FCN%29&highlight=aliyah)
All In (Daniel Burman) 2012 (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30683#post30683)
Americn Commune (Nadine Mundo, Rena Mundo Croshere 2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30686#post30686)
Amy Winehouse: The Day She Came to Dingle (Maurice Linnane 2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013/page2#post30698)
Art of Spiegelman (Clara Kuperberg, Joëlle Oosterlinck 2010) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30670#post30670)
The Attack (Ziad Doueiri 2012)--SFJFF Centerpiece Film (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30631#post30631)
Before the Revolution (Dan Shadur 2013) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30707#post30707)
Behind Me Olive Trees (Pascale Abou Jamra 2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30590#post30590)
Dancing in Jaffa (Hilla Medalia 2013) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30642#post30642)
Every Tuesday: A Portrait of The New Yorker cartoonists (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30671#post30671)
First Cousin Once Removed (Alan Berliner, NYFF 2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3341-New-York-Film-Festival-2012&p=28570#post28570)
Gideon’s Army (Dawn Porter 2013) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30596#post30596)
In the Shadow (David Ondrícek 2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30730#post30730)
Jerry and Me (Mehrnaz Saeedvafa 2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30732#post30732)
Joe Papp in Five Acts (Karen Thorsen, Tracy Holder 2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30735#post30735)
Kenny Hotz's Triumph of the Will (Kenny Hotz. Sebastian Cluer 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30600#post30600)
The Lab (Yotam Feldman 2013) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30669#post30669)
The Last Sentence (Jan Troell 2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30748#post30748)
My Father and the Man in Black (Jonathan Holiff 2013) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30775#post30775)
Red Flag: Spotlight on Alex Karpovsky (Alex Karpovsky 2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30590#post30590)
That Woman (Ed Dick 2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30593#post30593)
Trials of Muhammad Ali (Bill Siegel 2013) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30596#post30596)

(I had already previously reviewed Aliyah and First Cousin Once Removed in other contexts.)

Alan Berliner will be given the Freedom of Expression Award at the fest.

Click here for the Festival Coverage thread. (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30588#post30588)

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)

Some short reviews of short films coming in this year's San Francisco Jewish Film Festival begin here. (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30590#post30590)

Behind Me Olive Trees (Pascale Abou Jamra 2012)
Red Flag (Alex Karpovsky 2012)
That Woman (Ed Dick 2012)

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)

Previews of two documentaries: Gideon's Army, The Trials of Muhammad Ali. (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30596#post30596)

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)

Ziyad Douari: The Attack (2012) - SFJFF CENTERPIECE FILM (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30631#post30631)

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REYMOND AMSALEM AND ALI SULIMAN IN THE ATTACK

Irreconcilable differences

Ziyad Doueri's The Attack provides an obvious setup. When Amin Jaafari, a distinguished Palestinian surgeon in Tel Aviv, gets a major Israeli award, there is a terrorist bombing and his wife, killed in the incident, becomes the prime suspect. This is a complete shock to him.

We get the point: even a thoroughly assimilated Palestinian awarded a national honor by Israeli society still finds his security and sense of belonging hang by a thread. The doctor, after treating the injured, is himself a suspect and is held for brutal interrogation but later found innocent and released. His colleagues at the hospital nonetheless pass around a petition to strip him of his Israeli citizenship. But a few Israeli colleagues remain utterly loyal. Incredulous and now angry at his wife whom he seems no longer to know or understand, Dr. Jaafari goes to Nablus to investigate, at considerable personal risk, the sources of the bombing, starting with his own and his wife's family.

This is a setup to show Palestinian rage and the impossibility of a Palestinian's assimilating into Israeli society. But it's not a very obvious setup, after all, because this can't be a very typical case. Surely Palestinians who've won distinction in Tel Aviv don't turn out to have wives who are suicide bombers -- or do they?

This was also scheduled as the centerpiece film at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, July 30 (Castro Theater, San Francisco) and Aug. 4 (California Theater, Berkeley). Debuted at Teluride, then Toronto, fall 2012; limited US theatrical release Jun2 27, 2013. Screened for this review at Angelika Film Center, NYC, July 10, 2013.

For the full review see Filmleaf's Festival Coverage section for the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival here. (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30631#post30631)

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)

Jill Soloway: Afternoon Delight (2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30636#post30636)

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RACHEL HAHN IN AFTERNOON DELGIHT


In TV writer Soloway's short feature a bored, well-off Jewish LA wife (Kathryn Hahn) brings a dangerous element into her household in an effort to liven up her sex life, do good, or just relieve the ennui. More titillating than enlightening, with a definite reference to the protag's involvement in the local JCC to qualify for SFJFF inclusion and an annoying motormouth protagonist, AFTERNOON DELIGHT has the peculiar distinction of being a film made for women that women will probably not want to watch.

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)

Hilla Medalia: Dancing in Jaffa (2013) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30642#post30642)

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Award-winning Israeli documentarian Hilla Medalia follows world-famous ballroom dancing exponent Pierre Dulaine as he teaches Palestinian and Jewish Israeli fifth-graders etiquette and mutual respect in his hometown Jaffa, now a poor, mixed suburb of Tel Aviv. DANCING IN JAFFA, 84 mins., was picked up at Tribeca by Sundance Selects for US theatrical release jointly along with IFC, probably in the fall of 2013. It becomes part of an upcoming IFC/Sundance lineup that also includes Alexandre Moors' BLUE CAPRICE (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3441-New-Directors-New-Films-and-Film-Comment-Selects-2013&p=29785#post29785)(ND/NF 2013), Abdellatif Kechiche's Cannes Palm d'Or winner BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR, and other Cannes films VENUS IN FUR Polanski, (from the stage play) and YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL (Francois Ozon).

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)

Alan Berliner's FIRST COUSIN ONCE REMOVED will be shown at these venues and times during the SFJFF:


July 29, 6:25, Castro Theatre, San Francisco
August 3, 12:00, California Theatre, Berkeley
August 4, 12:00, Cinearts, Palo Alto
August 11, 2:05, Rafael Film Center, San Rafael, CA

Other new films of note in the Bay Area (not in the Jewish Film Festival):

CRYSTAL FAIRY (Sebastian Silva)
Now Playing
Opera Cinema Plaza, San Francisco
Shattuck Cinemas, Berkeley


AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY (Terrence Nance) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3246-New-Directors-New-Films-and-Film-Comment-Selects-2012&p=27506#post27506)
Now Playing
Roxie Theater, San Francisco

--July 23, 2013.

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)

Yotam Feldman: The Lab (2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30669#post30669)

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This shocking documentary about the Israeli arms manufactoring and marketing abroad deserves to be seen with two other powerful ones I've reviewed, THE GATEKEEPERS, about the Israeli security services; and THE LAW IN THESE PARTS, about the legal double standard imposed on Palestinians in the State of Israel. All contain interviews with leading figures.

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)


Clara Kuperberg, Joelle Oosterlinck : The Art of Spiegelman (2010) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30670#post30670)

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Art Spiegelman in The Art of Spiegelman

A lovely 40-minute portrait of Art Spiegelman, a leader of the underground comix of the Seventies and famous for Maus, his graphic novel narrative completed through the Eighties of discovering the Holocaust through conversations with his concentration camp survivor father. Over a period of several decades Spiegelman also did some provocative New Yorker covers as an artist for the magazine since 1992, and his French wife Françoise Mouly, a longtime collaborator, has been The New Yorker's Art Director since 1993. Maus is a classic. So is Spiegelman, an articulate and happy man whom it's a pleasure to listen to and learn about.

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)

Rachel Loube: Every Tuesday, a Portrait of the New Yorker Cartoonists (2011) ) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30671#post30671)

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Young New Yorker cartoonist Zack Kamin

Now, a dozen or so meet for lunch on Tuesdays, the day when the New Yorker cartoons for the next week are chosen. They often submit ten, and one at most is chosen; over all, maybe one in a hundred gets a spot in the magazine. This 20-minute doc interviews four of the current crop, male, female, young, old. A documentary about all the great New Yorker cartoonists of the magazine's glory days has yet to be made, but one may be under way, and on YouTube there is a short film about how the cartoons are selected each week featuring Mike Mankoff, the current New Yorker cartoon editor.

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New Yorker cartoon by Drew Dernovich, a contributor
since 2002 who uses scrathboard to create the look
of a Thirties woodcut in his cartoons.

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)

More to come

Watch for my upcoming reviews of, or short comments on, these additional SFJFF titles:

After Tiller (Lana Wilson, Martha Shane) 2013
Documentary on the lives and work of the four remaining doctors who try carry on Dr. George Tiller's work of 3rd trimester abortions in the US since the pro-life extremist assassination of Tiller in 2009 . 88 mins. Sundance (see 20-minute Democracy Now report (http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/24/after_tiller_40_years_after_roe).) US release NYC Sept. 20, 2013.

All In/La suerte en tus manos (Daniel Burman 2012)
An Argentinian rom-com feature: An addictive poker player from Buenos Aires with two young kids reconnects with an old flame after his marriage fizzles. 113 mins. Festivals. I reviewed this director's 2006 Family Law (http://www.cinescene.com/knipp/familylaw.html).

American Commune (Nadine Mundo, Rena Mundo Croshere 2013)
A documentary about two sisters revisiting a rural 1970-founded Tennessee commune they left in 1985 called "The Farm." 90 mins. Festivals.

Amy Winehouse: The Day She Came to Dingle (Maurice Linnane 2012)
A concert + doc about the late singer (she died in July 2011 at the age of 28) when she gave a stunning acoustic performance in a church at the music festival in the Irish fishing village of Dingle in 2006. 60 mins. TV episode, UK 23 July 2012.

Before the Revolution/قبل إز إنقلاب [Before the Coup] (Dan Shadur 2013)
A documentary about pre-'79 when Israel and Iran were allies, about the large Israeli community in Teheran who woke up one day and had to flee. 60 mins. No release info.

In the Shadow/Ve stínu (David Ondříček 2012)
A noirish Czech feature of a cop battling a corrupt communist system in Prague in 1953; 106 mins. 2012 Czech Oscar Best Foreign entry. Festivals. UK/Australian DVD? I reviewed his 2006 Grandhotel (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?1999-San-Francisco-International-Film-Festival-2007-%2850th-anniversary%29&p=17581#post17581)(SFIFF 2007).

Jerry and Me (Mehrnaz Saeedvafa 2012)
In an autobiographical and historical documentary an Iranian filmmaker examines her early fascination with the comic in light of an uneasy later personal encounter, with a quick review of Iranian film history. 38 mins. Festivals. Detailed blog review summary here. (http://www.lolajournal.com/3/jerry_and_me.html)

Joe Papp in Five Acts (Karen Thorsen, Tracie Holder 2012)
A documentary portrait of the influential New York theatrical impressario. 84 mins. DVD release 6 June 2010. Shown on PBS’s American Masters series Thursday, 4 April 2013. Hollywood Reporter review (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/joe-papp-in-five-acts-tribeca-review-318023).

The Last Sentence/Dom över död man (Jan Troell 2012)
A feature by the great Swedish director based on the life of journalist Torgny Segerstedt, who alerted the Swedish public to the threat of Fascism in the 1930s. 124 mins. Festivals; in Sweden and the Netherlands already theatrically released.

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)

Martha Shane and Lana Wilson: After Tiller (2013) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30680#post30680)

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A documentary about the four remaining doctors in the US who perform late-term abortions in the wake of the 2009 murder of their mentor and colleague Dr. George Tiller, killed in church in Kansas. This is a preview. The film will be released theatrically in NYC September 30.

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)

Daniel Burman: All In [La suerte en tus manos] (2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30683#post30683)

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Rom-com, Jewish, in Buenos Aires. An obsessive poker player and successful financial wheeler-dealer, divorced, with two young kids, reunites with a girlfriend from his youth, but a lie he tells her keeps him tangled up for scene after scene. Talented director Burman with his frequent writing collaborator Sergio Dubcovsky has produced something very ingenious, but perhaps too much so. They went to a great deal of trouble, still keeping it pretty light, to deliver something that's done better in Hollywood, and sometimes Paris. There are some fun moments though, and very watchable actors, including Argentinian diva Norma Aleandro, as the girlfriend's intellectual celebrity mother.

I reviewed Burman's 2006 FAMILY LAW (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?1929-Daniel-Burman-Family-Law) and Oscar offered knowledgeable commentary. Since Burman is an "unofficial chronicler of Jewish life in Argentina," or in Buenos Aires anyway, this is definitely a movie that belongs in the Jewish Film Festival. I think FAMILY LAW was more original and better. I have not seen any of Burman's seven other features, as yet anyway. I see Netflix has two of them.

Venezia
By the way: The Venice Film Festival, no. 70, announced their lineup July 25.
70th Venice Film Festival
28th August > 7th September 2013
Click on the image below for more information:
http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/5857/0wpq.jpg (http://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/)

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)

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Rena Mundo Croshere, Nadine Mundo: American Commune (2013) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30686#post30686)

America's largest utopian socialist experiment is revisited by two sisters who left it with their mother at nine and twelve when a mass exodus split their parents, a Puerto Rican man from the Bronx and a woman from a well-off orthodox Jewish family in Beverly Hills who had met as followers of Stephen Galkin, the charismatic guru in San Francisco who led a caravan to Tennessee where 300 hippie Christian-spiritual vegans abstaining from alcohol and contraception living in the commune they called "The Farm" grew through the Seventies to 1,200. Nadine and Rena go to a recent reunion of members, and tell their story and the commune's with a wealth of archival materials and present-day interviews with themselves, their parents and brother, and former commune members, including the leader, who still lives there. The sisters have a feeling of rediscovering lost roots.

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)

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Maurice Linnane: Amy Winehouse: The Day She Came to Dingle (2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013/page2#post30698)

She was only 22 in 2006 when Amy Winehouse sang in the church of St James where the Other Voices featival is held in the remote Irish fishing village of Dingle. The film interweaves an interview with Amy at the time, a Russian Jew with a cockney accent, illustrating the influences she mentions, with her concert showing a voice that movingly interweaves jazz, soul, blues, and gospel with the semi-accoustic sound of a backup consisting only of lead and bass guitar. A lovely moment in time rendered tragic by Winehouse's death from an overdose in 2011.

[Chris Knipp]

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Dan Shadur: Before the Revolution (2013) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30707#post30707)

A family album, with supporting testimony of former officials, about the halcyon colonial days for Israelis when their country was, like the US, chummy with the Shah, and a large Israeli community lived in Tehran in luxury, blind to the atrocities of Savak, the disappeared ones, and the prevailing poverty and discontent. They fled reluctantly, and almost too late, when the revolution came in 1979. The filmmaker was only a baby when his family escaped.

[Chris Knipp]

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David Ondricek: In the Shadow (2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30730#post30730)

A Czech noir police procedural is the pretext for a depiction of Fifties communist show trials, in this case demonizing immigrant Jews as plotters of "Zionist terrorism." This is so drenched in dark atmosphere you can barely see what's going on, and this sort of thing has been done better before, not that the acting and cinematography are not impeccable in their way. The Czech Republic's 2012 Best Foreign Oscar entry.

[Chris Knipp]

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Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa: Jerry and Me (2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30732#post30732)

An Iranian film professor in Chicago tells the story of her life through the prism of Jerry Lewis, whose films were popular in the Tehran of her youth. She co-authored a book on Kiarastomi with Jonathan Rosenbaum, and her short films have been seen at numerous festivals.

[Chris Knipp]

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Karen Thorsen, Tracie Holder: Joe Papp in Five Acts (2010) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30735#post30735)

"A Gatsby-like American" -- David Hare.

An admiring portrait of the immensely important populist New York theatrical impresario from Brooklyn, who hid his immigrant roots until well into his career. He was notable for the free annual Shakespeare in the Park and the Public Theater in Lower Manhattan, and is still a living influence even though he died at 70 in 1991. All I can say about this guy is "Wow!"

[Chris Knipp]

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Jan Troell: The Last Sentence (2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013/page2#post30748)

About a crusading anti-Nazi Swedish editor who was also a cold-hearted adulterer. As Swedish-American film blogger Erik Lundgaard succinctly puts it, the theme adds up to "being on the right side of history doesn't mean you're not an asshole." Unfortunately this doesn't seem an enlightening truth and Troell lets the domestic ugliness gather more emotional resonance than his political story which is the only reason why this real-life person was worthy of a biopic. Good acting and visuals, but structure problems.

[Chris Knipp]

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Jonathan Holiff: My Father and the Man in Black (2012) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30775#post30775)

Saul Holiff, Jonathan's dad, was Johnny Cash's manager from 1960 to 1973 -- key years of his career. This documentary retraces Cash's bumpy life at that time, the two men's relationship, and the son's distant relationship with his father. Unearthing a cache of many years of diary on tape enables Jonathan to find out much he did not know about his dad.

Aug. 12, 2013. My last entry and the last day of this year's SFJFF.

[Chris Knipp]

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2720/7g6t.jpg (http://www.sfjff.org/)

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Theatrical release.

Hilla Medalia: Dancing in Jaffa (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3543-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2013&p=30642#post30642)

This little documentary about the famous dance teacher Pierre Dulaine, whose use of dance to charm and pacify disadvantaged groups inspired the films TAKE THE LEAD and MAD HOT BALLROOM this time getting Arab and Jewish kids to dance together in a contest in Israel-Palestine, will be released by Sundance Friday, 11 April 2014, according to Metacritic and Indiewire. This film doesn't go deep enough, but it has many cute and sweet moments.