Jewish

Two Nuggets at this year’s SFJFF

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Photo caption: Logan Lerman as Isaac and Molly Gordon as Iris in OH, HI!. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

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. Courtesy of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

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!.

The SFJFF is back in 2025

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Photo caption: Logan Lerman as Isaac and Molly Gordon as Iris in OH, HI!. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

One of the Bay Area’s top cinema events is back – the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), running from July 17 to August 3. The SFJFF is the world’s oldest and largest Jewish film festival – this year’s festival is the 45th! The program offers 70 films from Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, the US and the UK and Uzbekistan.

After opening night at the Herbst Theatre, films will screen at the AMC Kabuki 8, the Vogue, the Roxie, and Oakland’s Landmark Piedmont Theater, as well as additional programming at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.

Highlights include:

  • Opening Night: Amber Fares’s Coexistence, My Ass! won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression at this year’s Sundance. the film follows Israeli comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi (who will perform live in a separate event on the SFJFFF’s first weekend) as she develops an act tackling inequality and taboo amidst the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
  • Centerpiece Narrative: In Fantasy Life, writer-director Matthew Shear stars as a laid-off, thirty-something paralegal who begins nannying for his psychiatrist’s grandkids and falls for their mother.  Co-stars Amanda Peet and Judd Hirsch.
  • Next Wave Spotlight: The dark rom com Oh, Hi! stars Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman as a couple heading off to a countryside vacation rental for their first romantic getaway, which gets completely unhinged. It’s the sophomore feature for writer-director Sophie Brooks (The Boy Downstairs, SFJFF 2017).
  • Closing Night: The Floaters, an indie comedy about misfits at a Jewish summer camp.

Just before the fest, I’ll be publishing some recommendations. I’ve already screened an absurdly dark rom com and an unexpectedly wacky documentary. Check out the program and buy tickets at SFJFF. Here’s the trailer for Oh, My!.

BETWEEN THE TEMPLES: prodded out of his funk

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In Nathan Silver’s comedy Between the Temples:, Jason Schwartzman plays a cantor whose wife’s death the year before has plunged him into despair; he is so paralyzed by depression, he has even lost his ability to sing. He has a chance meeting with his childhood music teacher (Carol Kane), now a retired widow.

Despite her age and his resistance, she insists on joining the bat mitzvah class he teaches at the temple. She’s a force of nature and may have enough gusto to overcome his angst. As their friendship evolves, will it bring him out of his funk?

Between the Temples is co-written by C. Mason Wells and director Nathan Silver. There are plenty of chuckles arising from Schwartzman’s character trying to neutralize his former teacher’s tsunami of will. And there are LOL moments from Madeleine Weinstein’s hilarious turn as as the rabbi’s lovelorn daughter Gabby.

Kane is excellent, and so is Dolly De Leon, who stole Triangle of Sadness, sparkles as a relentlessly determined Jewish mother. The prolific comedy writer Robert Smigel appears as the rabbi.

I screened Between the Temples for this year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival; Between the Temples opens in Northern California theaters this weekend.

The SFJFF is here

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Photo caption: Amer Hlehel and Ashraf Farah in Maha Haj’s MEDITERRANEAN FEVER at the SLO Film Fest Courtesy of San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF) always a major event for Bay Area cinephiles, opens today. The SFJFF is the world’s oldest and largest Jewish film festival, and the program offers over 60 films from Israel, Palestine, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Cyprus, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, the US and the UK. Here’s my festival preview.

This year, I’m recommending three comedies.

  • Mediterranean Fever: A depressive writer becomes friends with his shady neighbor and the two embark on a dark journey. Second feature for Israeli Arab director Maha Haj. Although it’s dark and funny, I don’t want to describe Mediterranean Fever, like I do many films, as “darkly funny” because the tone is singular. Haj has written a story about that unfunniest of topics, depression, and keeps us watching with subtle, observational humor.  In Mediterranean Fever, we glimpse into the day-to-day life of Israeli Arabs – and middle-class Israeli Arabs at that. Won the Un Certain Regard screenplay prize at Cannes. Here’s my full review.
  • The Monkey House: This witty, twisty comedy is the latest from popular and prolific Israeli writer-director Avi Nesher. Set in pre-Internet 1989, novelist Amitay (Adir Miller) has gone a long time without a best seller, and sees his literary legacy fading. His ego is uplifted by an American grad student who plans to publish about his body of work; but, when that falls through, Amitay plans an elaborate ruse – he hires the flighty, wannabe actress Margo (Suzanna Papian) to impersonate the grad student. Plenty of unanticipated complications threaten to derail the scheme and humiliate Amitay, especially to his recently-widowed, longtime crush Tamar (Shani Cohen). Nesher, evidently a gimlet-eyed observer of human behavior, delivers lots of plot twists in this smart and funny movie. Nominated for 11 Israeli Academy Awards.
  • Between the Temples: In Nathan Silver’s comedy, Jason Schwartzman plays a cantor whose wife’s death the year before has plunged him into despair; he is so paralyzed by depression, he has even lost his ability to sing. He has a chance meeting with his childhood music teacher (Carol Kane), now a retired widow. Despite her age and his resistance, she insists on joining the bat mitzvah class he teaches at the temple. She’s a force of nature and may have enough gusto to overcome his angst. As their friendship evolves, will it bring him out of his funk? There are plenty of LOL moments. Kane is excellent, and so is Madeleine Weinstein as the rabbi’s lovelorn daughter. Dolly De Leon, who stole Triangle of Sadness, sparkles as a relentlessly determined Jewish mother.

The SFJFF runs through August 4 in select San Francisco and Oakland venues. Peruse the program and purchase tickets at SFJFF. Here’s the trailer for Between the Temples.

SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL is here.

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WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL

It’s time for one of the Bay Area’s top cinema events: the 39th annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), which opens this Thursday, July 18, and runs through August 4 at five locations throughout the Bay Area. As usual, the fest presents a broad range of feature films from 17 countries (but mostly from the US and Israel), plus 2 programs of short films (Jews in Shorts).

My top recommendation is Rob Garver’s What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, a remarkably thorough and insightful biodoc of the iconic film critic and her drive for relevance. It’s illustrated with clips of the movies that she loved and hated. I’ll publish my long form review when What She Said is released in the Bay Area.

Two more SFJFF entries about the movies are Curtiz, a narrative film about the prolific director Michael Curtiz and Carl Laemmle, a documentary about the pioneering movie impresario

SFJFF always presents an excellent slate of docs. This year’s batch includes Golda, with footage from Golda Meir’s last interview.

There are also comedies. The sibling roadtrip comedy Dancing Dogs of Dombrova looks promising. I’ve seen the comedy of manners How About Adolf? – a family provocateur trying to get under his brother-in-law’s skin unintentionally ignites an eruption of family resentments and revelations.

I haven’t seen it, but my favorite SFJFF title this year is the animated film Seder-Masochism.

One of the most appealing features of the SFJFF39 is that, wherever you live in the Bay Area, the fest comes to you. SFJFF39 will present films at the Castro in San Francisco, CIneArts in Palo Alto, the Albany Twin in Albany, the Rafael in San Rafael and the Piedmont in Oakland. You can peruse the entire program and buy tickets and passes at San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

Jut for fun, here’s the delightful trailer from the 2016 version of SFJFF.