San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

So Long Are You Young

Director in person

Why are Japanese tourists coming to Birmingham, Alabama, to visit the hometown of a 19th-century German Jewish dry-goods merchant? Why could the founder of Panasonic and many other Japanese business titans recite by heart that same Jewish merchant's obscure poem?

These conundrums have intrigued Marin County filmmaker Judith Schaefer for years, and she unravels them in her eloquent and heartfelt documentary that tells the dual story of Samuel Ullman, an unusual Jew from the American South, and his remarkable poem, "Youth." Ullman wrote the poem when he was 77 as a kind of homily: "Youth is not a time of life/It is a state of mind...We grow old by deserting our ideals."

General Douglas MacArthur is said to have kept a framed copy of the poem in his Tokyo office, and its hopeful words spoke to a generation of postwar Japanese eager for new watchwords to live by. The poem's astonishing journey and its author's equally fascinating contributions to the Jewish and African American communities of the South are touching revelations in this lovely ode to the power of poetry.

Director will be in attendance in all screenings.

Watch the So Long Are You Young clip

Presented with Ezekiel's Wheels

Sponsored by Ray Lifchez

Co-presented by the Center for Asian American Media and by Lehrhaus Judaica