The Jewish Museum and Film at Lincoln Center Announce the 33rd Annual New York Jewish Film Festival, Presented January 10-24, 2024

NEW YORK, NY (December 7, 2023) – The Jewish Museum and Film at Lincoln Center will present the 33rd annual New York Jewish Film Festival (NYJFF) from January 10 through 24, 2024. Among the oldest and most influential Jewish film festivals worldwide, NYJFF presents the finest documentary, narrative, and short films from around the world that explore the Jewish experience. 

The 2024 edition will feature in-person screenings at Film at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street. The NYJFF lineup showcases 28 wide-ranging and exciting features, documentaries, and shorts (10 narrative features, 11 documentaries, and seven shorts), including the latest works by dynamic voices in international cinema, as well as the U.S. premiere of a restored 35mm print of a rarely shown 1939 Yiddish classic, Mothers of Today, a domestic melodrama starring 1930s radio star Esther Field as an immigrant widow in New York. 

In the Opening Film, One Life, directed by James Hawes and based on true events, two-time Academy Award winner Sir Anthony Hopkins gives an intensely moving performance as Sir Nicholas Winton, a British stockbroker who during World War II helped Jewish refugee children escape to safety from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. 

In this year’s Centerpiece Film, Valeria Is Getting Married, an acclaimed second dramatic feature by Israeli filmmaker Michal Vinik, the debated ritual of arranged marriages in our contemporary world is explored with sensitivity and complexity. The film focuses on a pair of Ukrainian sisters who come to Israel to start anew only to find themselves questioning their decisions.

The Closing Film, Remembering Gene Wilder, is an enrapturing and heartfelt documentary that takes a close look at the life and career of American original Gene Wilder, beginning with his Jewish upbringing in Milwaukee, including interviews with Alan Alda, Mel Brooks, Carol Kane, Karen Wilder (Gene’s wife), Rain Pryor, and others. Ron Frank’s film shines a light on an essential performer, writer, director, and all-around mensch.

Additional notable highlights in this year’s festival include 999: The Forgotten Girls, The Books He Didn’t Burn, Fioretta, The Goldman Case, Looking for Chloé, Rabbi on the Block, and The Shadow of the Day.

Best-selling author and historian Heather Dune Macadam adapts her acclaimed book into the powerful documentary 999: The Forgotten Girls, about nearly 1,000 Slovak Jewish women illegally deported to Auschwitz on what was the first Jewish transport to the Nazi death camp. Rather than strictly focusing on the suffering experienced by most of the girls, Macadam tells stories of a small group who survived against all odds.

The gripping and provocative documentary, The Books He Didn’t Burn, narrated by Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons, follows eminent historian Timothy W. Ryback as he examines the remains of Adolf Hitler’s private library, much of which is currently housed in Washington, D.C. at the Library of Congress.

The enthralling and personal documentary Fioretta follows E. Randol (Randy) Schoenberg, a genealogist and attorney who specializes in recovering Nazi-looted art, and his teenage son, as they embark on a quest to trace their family lineage, which leads them back to the 500-year-old Jewish Ghetto in Venice.

One of the most acclaimed films from the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, The Goldman Case is a gripping courtroom drama from widely admired French filmmaker Cédric Kahn (Red Lights) that delves into the sensationalized 1976 trial of Pierre Goldman, a left-wing activist defending himself against multiple charges, including murder during an armed robbery.

Looking for Chloé, a colorful, immersive documentary by director Isabelle Cottenceau and producer Sophie Jeaneau, tells the history of Gaby Aghion, the Egyptian Jewish woman who founded the revolutionary French fashion house Chloé and transformed the clothing industry by giving women lighter, more wearable wardrobes.

A gripping documentary feature by Brad Rothschild, Rabbi on the Block follows Tamar Manasseh, a charismatic Black Jewish rabbi and community activist from Chicago’s South Side, who has devoted her career to creating a bridge between the city’s Black and Jewish communities.

A captivating tale of love against the odds set in late 1930s Italy, The Shadow of the Day follows a provincial restaurant owner and fascist sympathizer who falls for a mysterious young woman who arrives at his doorstep looking for work. Giuseppe Piccioni’s beautifully mounted human drama demonstrates the possibility of redemption in the darkest times.

Two shorts of particular interest include Crossing the River and Periphery. The world’s oldest living siblings who survived the Holocaust are the charming and inspiring subjects of the short documentary Crossing the River, directed by Allan Novak and produced by Debi Wisch. Miraculously living through years in a Siberian labor camp after escaping from Nazi-occupied Poland, the four siblings—whose ages range from 96 to 101—tell stories of their lives in Winnipeg, where they’ve lived since the end of the war.

Periphery, a short film by Black and Jewish filmmaker Sara Yacobi-Harris, takes a close look at multicultural Jewish identity. Using dance, poetry, and spoken personal narratives, the film tells the stories of Jews of varying descents and various representations and sexualities.

In Mothers of Today, a restoration of a rarely shown Yiddish melodrama from 1939, screening in 35mm, audiences will have the delightful chance to view the only big-screen appearance of Esther Feld, the 1930s radio star who was known as the quintessential “Yiddishe Mama.” Feld portrays an immigrant Jewish widow in New York who witnesses the gradual deterioration of her family and loss of tradition, due to neighborhood crime and the realities of assimilation. Shot in the Bronx, this fascinating and moving historical artifact is also a showcase for traditional Jewish music and prayers, and still has the power to move viewers with its authentic emotional directness.

See below for the slate of films with full descriptions and schedule. Details for in-person appearances to be announced at filmlinc.org.

The films for the 2024 New York Jewish Film Festival have been selected by Rachel Chanoff, Director, THE OFFICE performing arts + film; Lisa Collins, director, writer, special correspondent, programmer, and events/film producer; Indigo Sparks, performance artist and producer; and Aviva Weintraub, director, New York Jewish Film Festival, the Jewish Museum; with Dan Sullivan, programmer, Film at Lincoln Center as advisor, and assistance from Cara Colasanti, film festival coordinator, the Jewish Museum.

TICKETS
Member ticket presale for NYJFF tickets for Film at Lincoln Center and Jewish Museum Members begins on December 14 at 11am, and tickets for the general public will be on sale beginning December 18 at noon. Tickets can be purchased at nyjff.org.

In-theater ticket prices are $17 for the general public; $14 for students, seniors, and persons with disabilities; and $12 for FLC and JM members. Buy tickets to three films and save $2 off each ticket (with the exception of the Opening Film). Opening Film tickets: $25 for the general public; $23 for students, seniors and persons with disabilities; and $20 for FLC and JM members. 

SUPPORT
The New York Jewish Film Festival is made possible by the Martin and Doris Payson Fund for Film and Media.

Generous support is also provided by The Liman Foundation, Sara and Axel Schupf, Louise and Frank Ring, Mimi and Barry Alperin, the Ike, Molly and Steven Elias Foundation, Amy Rubenstein, and Steven and Sheira Schacter.

Additional support is provided by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in New York, the Polish Cultural Institute New York, Villa Albertine, and the Austrian Cultural Forum New York. 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Stuart Hands, Toronto Jewish Film Festival; Jessica Rosner; Isaac Zablocki, Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan; Marlene Josephs, Linda Lipson, Volunteers; Emory Olander, Natalie Semmel, Interns.

 

FILM DESCRIPTIONS & SCHEDULE

All films screen at the Walter Reade Theater (165 W 65th Street) 

Opening Film
One Life
James Hawes, 2023, U.K., 110m
New York Premiere
In this vivid and stirring historical drama, based on true events, two-time Academy Award winner Sir Anthony Hopkins gives an intensely moving performance as Sir Nicholas Winton, a humble, mild-mannered British stockbroker who during World War II helped Jewish refugee children escape to safety from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. In the 1980s, suddenly forced to recall the events he had for decades kept to himself, Winton flashes back to stories of this heroism, which was aided by his lionhearted mother Babette (played in flashbacks by the wondrous Helena Bonham Carter), who assisted in fundraising and navigating bureaucratic obstacles in the U.K. In addition to being a remembrance of bravery and goodness in times of evil, One Life is a vibrant reminder of the importance of human compassion. 
Wednesday, January 10 at 7:30pm
Thursday, January 11 at 8:00pm

Centerpiece Film
Valeria Is Getting Married
Michal Vinik, 2023, Israel/Ukraine, 76m
Hebrew, Russian, and English with English subtitles
New York Premiere
In her acclaimed second feature, Israeli filmmaker Michal Vinik explores with sensitivity and complexity the debated ritual of arranged marriages in our contemporary world. The film focuses on a pair of Ukrainian sisters: Valeria (Dasha Tvoronovich) is just arriving to Israel, where she will first meet her husband-to-be, Eiytan (Avraham Shalom Levi); and her sister Christina (Lena Fraifeld), who is married to Michael (Yaakov Zada Daniel), a marriage broker who has arranged Valeria’s union. As Vinik digs deeper into their lives, cracks begin to appear in Christina’s seemingly happy surface, which begin to affect Valeria. Nominated for nine Israeli Academy Awards, and winner of the Best Screenplay prize for Vinik, Valeria Is Getting Married is a potent and probing film featuring standout performances.
Wednesday, January 17 at 2:30pm & 8:30pm

Closing Film
Remembering Gene Wilder
Ron Frank, 2023, U.S., 92m
New York Premiere
Few comedic actors have left a more indelible mark on our culture than Gene Wilder, whose performances in such classics as The Producers, Young Frankenstein, and Silver Streak made him one of the most beloved stars of his era. This enrapturing and heartfelt documentary takes a close look at the life and career of this American original, from his Jewish upbringing in Milwaukee, to his early stage work, to his breakthrough collaborations with Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor, to his marriage to Gilda Radner and beyond. Using a variety of touching and hilarious clips and outtakes; never-before-seen home movies; narration from Wilder’s audiobook memoir; and interviews from a roster of brilliant collaborators including Mel Brooks, Alan Alda, Carol Kane, Harry Connick Jr., Rain Pryor, Karen Wilder (Gene’s wife), and Peter Ostrum, who portrayed Charlie in one of Gene’s most memorable roles, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Ron Frank’s film shines a light on an essential performer, writer, director, and all-around mensch.
Wednesday, January 24 at 1:00pm & 7:00pm

 

MAIN SLATE FILMS

999: The Forgotten Girls
Heather Dune Macadam, 2023, U.S., 86m
New York City Premiere
Best-selling author and historian Heather Dune Macadam has adapted her acclaimed book 999 into a powerful new documentary that sheds light on a wrenching true story. In March 1942, nearly 1,000 young Slovak Jewish women, mostly teenagers, told by their government that they were embarking on a volunteer work assignment, were instead illegally deported to Auschwitz on what was the first Jewish transport to the Nazi death camp. Rather than strictly focus on the suffering and death experienced by most of the girls, Macadam tells stories of a small group who survived against all odds, even under unimaginable conditions that lasted more than three grueling years. A film of deep research and vivid detail, 999: The Forgotten Girls ensures that these women will no longer be a historical footnote. Note: some images may be disturbing.
Monday, January 22 at 5:30pm

All About the Levkoviches
Adam Breier, 2023, Hungary, 85m
Hungarian and Hebrew with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Told with delightfully mordant humor and a genuine warmth, this appealing domestic story from Hungarian filmmaker Adam Breier follows a Jewish family on the winding path toward reconciliation. Tamas (a gruff but tender Bezerédi Zoltán) is an aging boxing coach in present-day Budapest whose relationship with his son, Ivan (Szabó Kimmel Tamás), has frayed to the point of estrangement. After converting to Orthodox Judaism, Ivan moved to Israel, where he had a son, Ariel (Leo Gagel), whom Tamas has never met. Now, Ivan and Ariel have come back to Budapest for the funeral of Tamas’s wife, forcing father and son to face one another. Breier’s film is masterfully acted and directed, maintaining a perfectly balanced tone between comedy and pathos.
Monday, January 15 at 3:45pm
Tuesday, January 16 at 1:00pm

The Books He Didn’t Burn
Claus Bredenbrock and Jascha Hannover, 2023, Germany, 92m
English, French, and German with English subtitles
New York Premiere
This powerful documentary takes a critical look at the history of racism and antisemitism, and examines the remains of Adolf Hitler’s private library. The library, which comprised approximately 16,000 books by the time of his death, remains an object of intense study—more than 1,200 of them are currently housed in Washington D.C. at the Library of Congress. Claus Bredenbrock and Jascha Hannover’s gripping, provocative documentary, narrated by Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons, follows Timothy W. Ryback, an eminent American historian and expert on Hitler’s library, as he tries to make sense of the historical meaning of this collection. Note: some images may be disturbing.
Monday, January 15 at 1:00pm

Delegation
Asaf Saban, 2023, Israel/Poland/Germany, 101m
Hebrew with English subtitles
New York Premiere
A common rite of passage for many young Jewish people becomes the anchor for a work of stirring drama and striking realism in the hands of filmmaker Asaf Saban. The film follows a trio of Israeli high school friends—Frisch, Nitzan, and Ido—on a class trip to Poland to visit former Nazi concentration camps and memorials of the Shoah. As with so many teenagers, the weight of history sometimes takes a back seat to seemingly more pressing concerns of the day, like love, jealousy, and friendship, as they begin to reckon with the tragic past and the question of their unknown future. A road trip movie and a coming-of-age drama, Delegation is about the search for one’s identity against the backdrop of an ever-present, unblinking history.
Sunday, January 21 at 7:15pm
Monday, January 22 at 2:00pm

Fioretta
Matthew Mishory, 2023, U.S./Czech Republic, 127m
New York City Premiere
This enthralling and personal documentary takes as its subject nothing less than the depths and expanses of Jewish history itself, while also focusing on the contemporary relationship of a father and son connecting through their shared fascination with the past. Fioretta follows E. Randol (Randy) Schoenberg, a Los Angeles–based genealogist and dedicated attorney who specializes in recovering Nazi-looted art, and his at-times-reluctant teenage son, Joey, as they embark on a quest to trace their family lineage and to find out more about an ancestor named Fioretta. This leads them to Randy’s famous grandfather, the Austrian American composer Arnold Schoenberg; his great-grandmother Pauline, a music teacher in Prague; and then further and further back to the 500-year-old Jewish Ghetto in Venice. It’s a story of kings and mystics, but also of everyday people who lived through centuries of historical upheaval throughout Europe, taking Randy and Joey—and the viewer—on a journey from California to Austria, the Czech Republic, and Italy.
Sunday, January 21 at 3:45pm

Giado
Sharon Yaish and Golan Rise, 2023, Israel, 56m
Hebrew and Italian with English subtitles
New York Premiere
This deeply personal documentary by Sharon Yaish and Golan Rise began when Yaish uncovered her grandfather Yosef’s journal. She quickly realized there was much she didn’t know about her own family’s past, specifically the harrowing conditions at the Giado concentration camp in the Libyan desert, where more than 3,000 Jews were sent from their homes in Benghazi during World War II. Though Yosef had kept his diary a secret from his family, Yaish and her co-director Golan Rise, whose mother was also enslaved at a labor camp in Libya, have decided to share this history in order to raise awareness. For too long, the Holocaust of North African Jewry has been left under-discussed and largely treated as a footnote; Giado uses interviews, animation, reconstructed models of the camp, and diary passages to create a singular, immersive experience of a past that shouldn’t be forgotten.

Preceded by: 
Crossing the River
Allan Novak, 2023, Canada, 30m
World Premiere
The world’s oldest living siblings who survived the Holocaust are the charming and inspiring subjects of this remarkable short documentary. Director Allan Novak and producer Debi Wisch introduce us to Sally, Anne, Ruth (affectionately known as the “shvesters,” or sisters), and their brother Sol, whose ages range from 96 to 101. Miraculously living through years in a Siberian labor camp after escaping from Nazi-occupied Poland, the siblings tell the story of their lives in Winnipeg, where they’ve lived since the end of the war.
Thursday, January 18 at 5:30pm

The Goldman Case
Cédric Kahn, 2023, France, 115m
French with English subtitles
New York Premiere
One of the most acclaimed films from the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, this gripping courtroom drama from widely admired French filmmaker Cédric Kahn (Red Lights) delves into the sensationalized 1976 trial of Pierre Goldman, a left-wing activist defending himself against multiple charges, including murder during an armed robbery. Arieh Worthalter is mesmerizing as the accused, a revolutionary and the son of Polish Jewish refugees who steadfastly maintained his innocence, while the facts of his case became a flash point for a generation, raising questions of antisemitism and political ideology. Directed with vérité realism and pinpoint historical precision, The Goldman Case is a focused, distilled dramatization that’s both subdued and electrifying, communicating so much about the complexity of Jewish identity in recent European history.
Sunday, January 14 at 6:30pm
Thursday, January 18 at 2:15pm

James Joyce’s Ulysses
Adam Low, 2022, U.K., 88m
Ulysses, the experimental novel by Irish writer James Joyce first published in 1922, misunderstood by many, and initially banned in the U.S. for obscenity, is regarded as one of the most groundbreaking, game-changing books ever written. It’s also, according to British journalist and novelist Howard Jacobson, “the greatest Jewish novel of the 20th century—the first one with a Jew at its very center”: Leopold Bloom. Adam Low’s engaging documentary, made on the centennial of Ulysses’s publication in Paris, plumbs the depths of this monumental work of literature—its meaning, its beauty and controversies, its explicitness and daring language, and the story of how a group of intrepid book lovers made sure it was published at all, including Sylvia Beach, who published the first edition from her Paris bookshop, and a lesbian couple who risked imprisonment for printing obscenity. A film that champions art and the people who encourage, create, and protect it, Low’s documentary testifies to the longevity of a masterpiece that still has the capacity to jolt readers to this day.
Sunday, January 21 at 1:00pm

The Klezmer Project
Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann, 2023, Austria/Argentina, 117m
Spanish, Yiddish, Ukrainian, Romanian, English, and German with English subtitles
New York Premiere
An inventive delight from filmmakers and real-life romantic partners Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann, the unconventional music film/road movie The Klezmer Project eludes normal classification, providing a pleasing experience beginning to end. Beginning as a fictionalized version of its directors’ own relationship, the film follows Buenos Aires wedding documentarian Leandro as he meets klezmer band clarinetist Paloma while on a job. The two decide to collaborate on a documentary about the Ashkenazi genre of instrumental music they both love. Soon, the film we’re watching begins to incorporate more elements, including a Yiddish-language supernatural tale and a metacinematic road journey. The grandchildren of Jewish immigrants who fled Europe during World War II, the filmmakers have made a brilliant, multilayered film.
Tuesday, January 23 at 5:30pm

Looking for Chloé 
Isabelle Cottenceau, 2023, France, 78m
French and English with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
A documentary portrait of the Jewish Egyptian designer Gaby Aghion (1921–2014), founder of the French fashion house Chloé. With clients such as Brigitte Bardot, Jackie Kennedy, and Maria Callas, transformed the clothing industry with clothes that went against the concept of haute couture to give women lighter, more wearable wardrobes. This empowering, revolutionary figure is the subject of this colorful, immersive documentary by French director Isabelle Cottenceau and producer Sophie Jeaneau, which uses previously unseen archival footage and images, as well as a recreated interview with Aghion herself, to paint a picture of an extraordinary woman and period in history for the fashion world. The film is a worthy tribute to Aghion, also a committed political figure and intellectual, who is believed to have invented the very concept of prêt-à-porter.
Saturday, January 20 at 7:00pm

Mothers of Today
Henry Lynn, 1939, U.S., 35mm 85m
Yiddish with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere of 35mm Restoration
In this restoration of a rarely shown classic from 1939, screening on 35mm, audiences have the delightful chance to witness the only big-screen appearance of Esther Field, the 1930s radio star who was known as the quintessential “Yiddishe Mama.” A domestic melodrama starring Field as an immigrant Jewish widow in New York who bears witness to the gradual deterioration of her family and loss of tradition due to neighborhood crime and the realities of assimilation, Mothers of Today is an example of the shund genre, forthrightly sentimental, low-budget films that were popular with working-class Jewish immigrant communities. Shot in the Bronx, this fascinating and moving historical artifact is also a showcase for traditional Jewish music and prayers, and still has the power to grip and move viewers with its authentic emotional directness. Film restoration by the National Center for Jewish Film
Thursday, January 11 at 2:30pm
Sunday, January 14 at 12:00pm
 

My Daughter, My Love
Eitan Green, 2023, Israel/France, 94m
French and Hebrew with English subtitles
New York Premiere
An understated and delicately drawn drama, My Daughter, My Love penetrates the foibles and difficulties we face in talking about parenting, relationships, love, and family. During a trip to Paris to see a close friend since their childhood together in Marrakesh, who is recovering from a recent heart attack, Israeli widower Shimon, wonderfully played by Sasson Gabai (The Band’s Visit), visits his daughter, Alma (Sivan Levy), and her husband, Dori (Clément Aubert), whose marriage seems fraught with tension. He soon discovers that Alma has been seeing another man and wants to leave Dori along with their young son. This begins a complex web of interactions that reveal the desires and frustrations of each person in the family, parent or child, leading to Shimon’s revelation that there are limits to his control over his daughter's life. Eitan Green’s film is a beautifully evoked and marvelously acted tale of acceptance and the feeling that it’s never too late to grow up.
Monday, January 22 at 8:15pm
Tuesday, January 23 at 2:30pm

No Name Restaurant
Stefan Sarazin and Peter Keller, 2022, Germany, 120m
Hebrew, Arabic, and English with English subtitles
New York Premiere
In this spirited and absurdist culture-clash comedy, two men of different strict religious faiths must work together to survive in the Sinai Desert. One is the lost and befuddled Ben (Luzer Twersky, Castles in the Sky; Felix and Meira), an ultra-Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn who has missed his flight to Alexandria, where he is to help the ever-dwindling Jewish community in need of a 10th man for its Passover celebration. The other is the dyspeptic Adel (Hitham Omari), a Bedouin man driving a Renault 4 trying to track down his runaway camel. After Adel’s car breaks down, the men must travel on foot, giving them a chance to get to know one another’s personal lives (and love of food) better, and giving their plans—which end up including a night in a Greek monastery—a chance to go increasingly haywire.
Thursday, January 18 at 8:30pm

Rabbi on the Block
Brad Rothschild, 2023, U.S., 89m
New York Premiere
This gripping documentary profiles the transformative and visionary Rabbi Tamar Manasseh, who is devoted to building bridges between the Black and Jewish communities on Chicago’s South Side. With verité intimacy, filmmaker Brad Rothschild (They Ain’t Ready for Me) shows how the issues playing out within these Chicago neighborhoods reflect larger realities across contemporary America, at a moment when antisemitism and racism are on the rise. The film also evokes Manasseh’s struggles in gaining acceptance within the larger Jewish community, as well as joyous events such as her rabbinical ordination and the bris of her first grandson. Rothschild creates an economical, humane portrait of a woman and her tireless battle that’s as intimate as it is widely socially relevant.
Monday, January 15 at 6:30pm
Tuesday, January 16 at 4:00pm

The Shadow of the Day
Giuseppe Piccioni, 2022, Italy, 125m
Italian with English subtitles
New York Premiere
A thoroughly gripping tale of love against odds set in Italy of the late 1930s, The Shadow of the Day follows provincial restaurant owner Luciano (Riccardo Scamarcio, Where Life Begins), a veteran wounded in World War I and a fascist sympathizer who has cut himself off from the world and his own emotions. Soon, a mysterious, penniless young woman, Anna (Benedetta Porcaroli), arrives at his doorstep looking for a job; gradually her presence begins to open him up to the possibility of human connection. At the same time, the dangerous antisemitism and political realities of Europe are creeping into their daily lives, leading to a reckoning that will force Luciano to question everything he thinks he knows about the world and his own heart. Filmed in the picturesque town of Ascoli Piceno in central Italy, Giuseppe Piccioni’s beautifully mounted human drama demonstrates the possibility of redemption in the darkest times.
Saturday, January 13 at 7:00pm
Sunday, January 14 at 2:45pm

Spinoza: Six Reasons for the Excommunication of the Philosopher
David Ofek, 2023, Israel, 56m
English, Dutch, and Hebrew with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere 
A Jewish Portuguese philosopher of the Enlightenment period born and raised in Amsterdam, Baruch Spinoza was excommunicated by the city’s Jewish authorities in 1656. His questioning of the nature of God and the divine origin of the Hebrew Bible had, the community’s leaders believed, crossed the line into heresy. Centuries later, this is considered a formative event in the development of Western Jewish thought. David Ofek’s accessible and fascinating documentary excavates this history, tracing six reasons why Spinoza was kicked out and explains why his unorthodox, profoundly spiritual ideas were revolutionary and remain radical to this day.

Preceded by
Periphery
Sara Yacobi-Harris, 2021, Canada, 28m
English and Brazilian Portuguese with English subtitles
New York Premiere
This short film by Black and Jewish filmmaker Sara Yacobi-Harris takes a close look at multicultural Jewish identity. Using dance, poetry, and spoken personal narratives, Periphery tells the stories of 10 Jews of varying descents, including Black/African, Indian, Iraqi, Korean, and South American, and various representations and sexualities. Yacobi-Harris’s film is an enlightening and enriching experience that affords a better grasp of the complexities of international and intersectional Jewish life.
Wednesday, January 17 at 5:30pm

Stay With Us
Gad Elmaleh, 2022, France, 93m
French with English subtitles
A delicate topic often unexplored on screen is treated with humor, irreverence, and complexity in Moroccan-born, French Jewish comedian and filmmaker Gad Elmaleh’s comedy Stay With Us. Taking the form of autobiographical comic portraiture, Elmaleh stars as a version of himself, returning home to Paris to see his parents (Elmaleh’s real mother and father) after living for years in the United States. His journey back home comes with some shocking news: He has decided to convert to Catholicism and is asking for his parents’ blessing for his forthcoming baptism. Both a tale of spiritual self-discovery and an entertaining depiction of ideological culture clash that ensues as Gad’s dumbstruck parents try to reckon with this turn of events, Stay With Us is a delightful film about challenging matters, and a reminder that sometimes our paths aren’t always easily laid out for us or our loved ones.
Thursday, January 11 at 5:30pm
Wednesday, January 24 at 4:00pm

Vishniac
Laura Bialis, 2023, U.S., 93m
New York Premiere
Director Laura Bialis’s penetrating documentary, produced by Nancy Spielberg and Roberta Grossman, looks at the complicated life of the legendary photographer Roman Vishniac. The now-iconic images of Eastern European Jewish life he captured in the 1930s—taken to help raise funds for Jewish people in need, which later became documentation of communities entirely wiped out—remain his most renowned output, yet as this wide-ranging portrait, told from the perspective of his daughter Mara, reveals, his artistry transcended both historical eras and aesthetic movements. While tracking his early life in czarist Russia to his celebrated artistic career in Weimar Berlin to the wartime escape of his family to America to his groundbreaking scientific work in microscopic photography, Bialis’s film doesn’t shy away from Vishniac’s difficult personality and proclivity to bend his own truth. It’s a nuanced snapshot of one of the last century’s most important image-makers as well as the story of a century marked by the increasing importance of photographic evidence.
Tuesday, January 16 at 7:00pm

 

NYJFF 2024 SHORTS PROGRAM

Shabbos Goy 
Adam Goott, 2022, U.K., 5m
U.S. Premiere 
This charming documentary short profiles Terry Neville, the non-Jewish, Irish caretaker at a synagogue in Hertfordshire, England. Using interviews and animation, Adam Goott pays tribute to this lovable, spirited man, who found an embracing community of people in an unlikely place.

How to Make Challah 
Sarah Rosen, 2023, U.S., 12m
World Premiere
In her moving short documentary, Sarah Rosen intercuts video taken in 1975 of her aunt Jane’s 97-year-old immigrant grandmother baking challah in her Upper West Side kitchen with newly filmed footage of Jane, now 80, attempting to bake her own challah for the first time. From this simple premise, Rosen expresses the complex ways that history, knowledge, and family legacies are passed down through the generations, from one woman to another.

Anyuka
Maya Erdelyi, 2023, U.S., 21m
World Premiere
Maya Erdelyi’s marvelous short film interweaves a variety of media—animation, super-8 home movie footage, and other archival images—to tell the deeply personal tale of her Hungarian-born grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, who raised her. Economically exploring questions around Jewish identity and diaspora, immigration and motherhood, Anyuka (which means “mother” in Hungarian) spans three continents in its story of one woman’s remarkable life.

The Speed of the Distance Between Us 
Yuval Shapira, 2023, U.S./Israel, 19m
Hebrew with English subtitles
World Premiere
In this intimate documentary short, filmmaker Yuval Shapira sits down with 10 sets of parents who lost their children during their Israeli army service. This series of interviews delicately reveals the pain of endurance and the ongoing struggle of living after the death of a loved one.

A Message from the Future: Bosnia Greets Ukraine
Edward Serotta, 2022, Austria, 17m
Bosnian with English subtitles
New York Premiere
This internationally acclaimed documentary short is an urgent reminder of the lingering scars of history, sending a message of hope and solidarity to contemporary Ukrainians from the Jewish Holocaust survivors, Bosniak Muslims, Serbian Orthodox, and Catholic Croats who worked together in a synagogue to help feed and care for the people of Sarajevo in the mid-1990s when they were under attack.
Tuesday, January 23 at 8:30pm

 

SCHEDULE OF FILMS

All screenings are at the Walter Reade Theater unless otherwise indicated.

 

Wednesday, January 10 (Opening Film)

7:30pm: One Life (110m)

 

Thursday, January 11

2:30pm: Mothers of Today (85m)

5:30pm: Stay With Us (93m)

8pm: One Life (110m)

 

Saturday, January 13

7pm: The Shadow of the Day (125m)

 

Sunday, January 14

12pm: Mothers of Today (85m)

2:45pm: The Shadow of the Day (125m)

6:30pm: The Goldman Case (115m)                                      

 

Monday, January 15

1pm: The Books He Didn't Burn (92m)         

3:45pm: All About the Levkoviches (85m)

6:30pm: Rabbi on the Block (89')

 

Tuesday, January 16

1pm: All About the Levkoviches (85m)

4pm: Rabbi on the Block (89m)

7pm: Vishniac (93m) 

 

Wednesday, January 17 (Centerpiece Film)

2:30pm: Valeria is Getting Married (76m)

5:30pm: Spinoza: Six Reasons for the Excommunication of the Philosopher (55')

preceded by Periphery (28m)

8:30pm: Valeria is Getting Married (76m)

 

Thursday, January 18

2:15pm: The Goldman Case (115m)               

5:30pm: Giado (56') preceded by Crossing the River (30m)

8:30pm: No Name Restaurant (120m)

 

Saturday, January 20

7pm: Looking for Chloe (78m)

 

Sunday, Jan 21, 2023

1pm: James Joyce's Ulysses (88m)

3:45pm: Fioretta (127m)

7:15pm: Delegation (101m)

 

Monday, January 22

2pm: Delegation (101m)

5:30pm: 999: The Forgotten Girls (86m)  

8:15pm: My Daughter, My Love (94m)

 

Tuesday, January 23

2:30pm: My Daughter, My Love (94m)

5:30pm: The Klezmer Project (117m)

8:30pm: NYJFF 2024 Shorts Program (TRT: 74m)

Shabbos Goy (5m)

How to Make Challah (12m)                                                              

Anyuka (21m)                                                                                      

The Speed of the Distance Between Us (19m)

A Message from the Future (17m)

 

Wednesday, January 24 (Closing Night)

1pm: Remembering Gene Wilder (92m)

4pm: Stay with Us (93m)

7pm: Remembering Gene Wilder (92m)