San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 2017

[Chris Knipp]

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Festival coverage thread begins HERE. (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4347-San-Francisco-Jewish-Film-Festival-2017&p=35848#post35848)


I'll be considering the following titles:

FEATURES:
1945 – X
32 Pills: My Sister’s Suicide - X
90 Minute War, The
Avanti Popolo
Ben-Gurion, Epilogue
Bending the Arc
Big Sonia
Bobbi Jene - X
Body and Soul: An American Bridge
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story - X
Boy Downstairs, The - X
Bye Bye Germany
Citizen Schein
Classy Broad, A
Death in the Terminal
F Word, The
Fanny’s Journey - X
Fritz Lang
Futures Past
Gilbert - X
Guys Next Door, The
Harmonia
Heather Booth: Changing the World
Home Port
House of Z
I’m Okay
In Between - X
Intent to Destroy
Levinsky Park
Little Stones
Love is Thicker Than Water - X
Moos - X
More Alive Than Dead
Mr. Predictable
Paradise - X
Planetarium
Quiet Heart, A
Red Trees, The
Stranger in Paradise
Subte-Polska
Supergirl
Tracking Edith

SHORT FILMS:
116 Cameras
Anna
Bagels in the Blood
Be Happy Tonight
Cantor and the Sea, The
Facing the Wall
Hinder and Her Sisterrrz
Hot
Kid Yamaka
Last Blintz
Mr. Bernstein
Transfer, The

[Chris Knipp]

SFJFF 2017 opening press release:

SAN FRANCISCO, June 20, 2017 – The Jewish Film Institute (JFI) is pleased to announce that in collaboration with The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF) is pleased to present Exodus: A Sidebar on the Refugee Experience as part of the 37th edition of the festival.

The sidebar will screen films that examine the experience of refugees and underscore the similarities between past and contemporary xenophobia, populism and extreme nationalism. Films in the program include:

An official selection 2017 Sundance Film Festival, THE GOOD POSTMAN is Tonislav Hristov’s absorbing documentary, which follows a postman in a small town in Bulgaria who runs for mayor under the platform of welcoming Syrian refugees. The outcome of the election (decided by less than 50 voters) soon takes on the trappings of a high drama campaign and shows the uneasy confrontation of a small village with the wider world during a time of humanitarian crisis.

In a year that saw over one million refugees arrive in Germany, filmmaker Pia Lenz follows the families of Djaner, a 7-year-old Roma boy, and Ghofran, an 11-year-old girl from Syria, as they settle in their adoptive home of Hamburg, Germany. But settled their lives are not, as revealed in this longitudinal portrait of coming of age while one’s homeland is coming apart. I’M OKAY examines conflicts writ large and small, tender and tragic, over the course of a year, while the brave young protagonists gamely search for themselves in their new world, brought about by dissolution.

LEVINSKY PARK tells the stories of residents, refugees and activists in the Levinsky Park neighborhood of Tel Aviv, Israel. Through the lens of an asylum seeker from Darfur, long time residents of the community, and a human rights activist, director Beth Toni Kruvant explores the contours and nuances of the refugee story. Particular to Israel’s refugee history, the film examines the subtle ways in which unrest exacerbates community tensions uncovering the global crisis pervading the world today.

The Opening Night film of IDFA 2016, STRANGER IN PARADISE offers three takes on immigration in Europe from an aggressive right-wing tabloid, a more human liberal stance and finally, a classroom of real-life migrants who are told how their cases may be handled. Operating at the intersection of fiction and documentary, STRANGER IN PARADISE reflects on the power relations between Europeans and refugees in a candid fashion.

Following the Castro screening of STRANGER IN PARADISE, SFJFF is pleased to present a panel discussion on the refugee and immigration crisis with experts in the field, featuring Mark Hetfield, Executive Director of HIAS; Amy Weiss, Director of Refugee and Immigrant Services, Jewish Family and Children's Services of the East Bay; Subhi Nahas, Syrian refugee and LGBTQ activist. The panel will be moderated by Michael Krasny, host of KQED Forum and is free and open to the public with RSVP or with purchase of a ticket to Stranger in Paradise.

VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED, the 1976 Hollywood classic starring Faye Dunaway, Orson Welles, Lee Grant, Malcolm McDowell, Jonathan Pryce, Max Von Sydow and Katharine Ross was inspired by the true story of the MS St. Louis ocean liner carrying Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany to Cuba in 1939.

Entering its 37th year, the Festival is expecting an audience of over 40,000 moviegoers at the following theaters; the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, the Landmark Albany Twin in Albany, the CinéArts Theatre in Palo Alto, the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, and the New Parkway Theater in Oakland.
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[Chris Knipp]

Descriptions of some features listed above.


90 Minute War, The
A fantasy in which the 100-year Palestinian-Jewish conflict is resolved in a soccer match.

Avanti Popolo
The third offering in the Israeli series at the Monica 4-Plex,a comedy about two Egyptian soldiers making their way through the Sinai desert after a cease-fire.

*Ben-Gurion, Epilogue
A reconstruction from recently found interviews with the Israel founding father.

Bending the Arc (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3636&view=next)
Previously reviewed, a history of the global medical system aid program Partners in Health.

*Big Sonia
Doc about a feisty little old Holocaust survivor living in Kansas City and struggling to survive a cruel economy.

​Body and Soul: An American Bridge
This documentary focuses on the early performance history of one of jazz's most recorded standards, "Body and Soul," and its meaning

​Bye Bye Germany
Moritz Bleibtrau fronts a post-war, Holocaust-survivor comedy-drama that displays too much polish and too little passion. You may have set aside those clichés about the German sense of humor after the wondrous Toni Erdmann, but get ready to dust them off for Sam Garbarski's sincere but stilted Bye Bye Germany. -Variety

Citizen Schein
A movie about the life of Harry Schein and his workings in the Swedish culture primetime.

Classy Broad, A
Doc about Vice President of Production at United Artists (UA) that brought forth such classics as Rocky, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Carrie, The Exorcist and Apocalypse Now

*Death in the Terminal
A thrilling reconstruction in so-called Rashomon style, with several eyewitnesses offering their own perspectives on a single tragic event.

F Word, The
A cooking show based on the UK original.

​Fritz Lang
A luridly sensationalized, wildly inaccurate imagining of what was behind Fritz Lang's supposed personality quirks - Jay Weissberg in Variety

Futures Past
Commodity trader turned filmmaker Jordan Melamed returns to his former life as the Chicago trading pits are threatened with extinction.

Guys Next Door, The
a feature-length documentary, invites viewers into the home of Erik and Sandro, a gay couple with two daughters birthed by their friend Rachel via donor eggs

Harmonia
Israeli drama about childless musician couple who are helped by a mysterious horn player. Directed by San Francisco-born "In Treatment" writer Ori Sivan

Heather Booth: Changing the World
Doc about a Chicago community organizer.

Home Port
After years at sea, Aaron returns to the port of Ashdod in the hopes of winning back his family, but he soon realizes that life on land is more complicated than he thought.

*House of Z
Fashion star Zac Posen’s fall-from-grace, and then unlikely comeback, is detailed by Sandy Chronopoulos’ compelling, if slender, doc.

I’m Okay
Pia Lenz on the refugee crisis - studies the families of Djaner, a 7-year-old Roma boy, and Ghofran, an 11-year-old girl from Syria, as they settle in their adoptive home of Hamburg, Germany.

​ Intent to Destroy
oe Berlinger (Metallica: Some Kind of Monster; Paradise Lost; Under African Skies, SFJFF 2012) uncovers the profoundly bitter truth behind modern Turkey’s campaign of denial and intimidation about the massacre of Armenians.

Levinsky Park
Doc on African refugees encountering difficulties in Israel.

Little Stones
Doc with global reach about women artists.

​* More Alive Than Dead
A dialogue about the legacy of Sigmund Freud

*Mr. Predictable
Israeli rom-com about a man who meets cute with a dog-walker.

*​ Planetarium
'Thirties period piece set in Paris about two sisters reunited starring Natalie Portman (A Tale of Love and Darkness, JFI WinterFest 2016) and Lily-Rose Depp.

*Quiet Heart, A
A riveting suspense thriller about the evils of religious intolerance. Ania Bukstein ("Game of Thrones") stars as Naomi, a secular Israeli suffering a personal crisis .

*Red Trees, The
Doc about the Willers, one of only 12 Jewish families that survived the Nazi occupation of Prague and did so while living openly as Jews.

Stranger in Paradise
Opening night film, doc about the European refugee crisis.

*Subte-Polska
Past and present collide in the jagged memories of an aging chess player who longs for later-life romance in this dreamlike Argentine melodrama.

Supergirl
Doc about a girl teen Orthodox weight lifter in New Jersey facing adolescent issues.

*Tracking Edith
Doc about filmmaker's great aunt, born in Vienna, who became a British spy who recruited Kim Philby and Anthony Blount called "grandmother of us all.".

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