The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), always a major event for Bay Area cinephiles, opens tomorrow. The program offers 70 films from Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, the US and the UK and Uzbekistan. Here’s my festival preview.
This year, I’m recommending two nuggets:
Oh, Hi!: This dark romantic comedy begins with a couple heading off to a countryside vacation rental for their first romantic getaway. All is lustful fun until they discover that each has a different perception of what their relationship is and where it is headed. What could have been a merely awkward or hurtful moment precipitates an extreme reaction, and escalates into an absurdly funny situation. Oh, Hi! is the sophomore feature for writer-director Sophie Brooks, who has created a broadly funny, over-the-top situation that is sharply observant about relationships tending to evolve at different speeds for the participants. It’s a very smart screenplay. Oh, Hi!, which premiered at Sundance, is releasing into theaters soon; see it early at the SFJFF. (Full review to be published on July 23.)
The Stamp Thief: We don’t expect a Holocaust-related documentary to get wacky, but The Stamp Thief combines a historical whodunit and a real-life comic heist. It begins with tracking down a fourth-hand oral account of Nazi-stolen valuable stamps hidden in Poland: Is it true, who was the Nazi, where did he stash the loot and is it still there? And here’s where The Stamp Thief gets zany. Because the Polish authorities have not been supportive of the restitution of Nazi loot, our heroes decide to find and recover the stamps with a ruse. The team masquerades as a film crew shooting a romantic drama; they plan to dig around Polish basements until they find the stamps, under the noses of the Poles. What could possibly go wrong? How does the team navigate the moral ambiguity of lying for a good cause? Do they find the stamps? Do they get caught? What follows is Sherlock Holmes meets The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, an unusually colorful documentary. Full review.
The SFJFF runs through August 3 in select San Francisco and Oakland venues. Check out the program and buy tickets at SFJFF.
Here’s the trailer for Oh, My!.