One of the Bay Area’s top cinema events is back – the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF) runs from July 22 to August 1. This year’s festival is a hybrid, including both movies to stream-at-home and in-person screenings at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre. The SFJFF is the world’s oldest and largest Jewish film festival, and the program offers over 50 films from over 20 countries.
The opening night film at the Castro, Persian Lessons, is especially strong. A Belgian Jew is sent to a German concentration camp and seeks to avoid death by claiming to be Persian, not anticipating that a Nazi officer will demand to be taught Farsi. To stay alive, the protagonist must invent an entire faux Farsi language, word-by-word, and remember it. All the while he’s sweating out the possibility that his ruse will be discovered. Persian Lessons walks a tightrope, and the ending is very emotionally powerful.
The SFJFF always presents an impressive slate of documentaries, recently including What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, Satan & Adam, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, The Mossad and Levinsky Park. Among this year’s program, I liked Kings of Capitol Hill, an Israeli’s filmmaker’s insiders’ exposé of AIPAC, the American pro-Israel advocacy group.
One of the strengths of recent SFJFF festivals has been its promotion of films that explore aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This year, Kings of Capitol Hill is one of seven films in the SFJFF program, both documentary and narrative, that touch on this topic.
I was also intrigued by the stylish Canadian indie narrative Sin la Habana, which braided together the yearnings of an Afro-Cuban couple and a Jewish-Iranian woman in Montreal.
You can peruse the festival’s program and schedule at SFJFF.
