San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

Welcome to the 27th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival!

Our signature image this year shows a shining light in motion, an unseen hand projecting something brilliant in the darkness. It captures the essence of why we love to present, curate and attend our festival: to be ignited by a spark from the infinite world of Jewish culture, history, issues and ideas...a spark refracted through the lens of remarkable filmmakers. This year's festival provides plenty of spark and sparkle: we bring you 54 films from 13 countries, shown in 5 Bay Area venues in 99 screenings (a record for us!). We open our San Francisco run with one of the year's finest dramatic films, Sweet Mud, a poignant tale of a boy growing up on a kibbutz, and end it on a hilarious note with Making Trouble, a tribute to Jewish women comedians, including a live performance by comic Judy Gold.

Also making us laugh—and simultaneously howl, cringe, gasp and applaud—is the inimitable Dani Levy, who returns to SFJFF to premiere his irreverent satire My Fuehrer: The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler and to receive our Freedom of Expression Award. Levy's films often deal with Jewish identity and culture in contemporary Europe, a theme echoed in a number of selections this year, including Just an Ordinary Jew, Gorgeous! and Yiddish Soul. The latter is among a spate of terrific musical offerings, highlighted by a live performance of Paul Shapiro's new jazz-klezmer score for the silent 1925 Jewish boxing classic His People, which screens as part of our special program on Jewish Boxers. In that series you'll enjoy the premiere of Orthodox Stance, profiling a remarkable 24-year-old Orthodox prizefighter, as well as retrospective films and discussions elucidating the long involvement of Jews in "the sweet science" of boxing.

2007 has seen film production in Israel continue to excel and thrive, and this year we feature more than two dozen dramas, documentaries and shorts produced or co-produced in Israel, paying special attention to recent documentary films by veterans Nurit Kedar and Duki Dror. In addition to the best new Israeli features (including Sweet Mud, Aviva My Love and The Bubble), we showcase documentaries that shine a light on the complex relationship between Jews and Palestinians (9 Star Hotel, Hot House, I Am You Are and Knowledge Is the Beginning) and between Israel and Lebanon (Borders, Lebanon Dream and Wasted). And this year, bringing back a popular SFJFF tradition that started in the 1990s with Florentine, we are screening a new television series in its entirety: Israel's latest, hottest TV drama, A Touch Away, screens in a special two-part showing at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.

So whether you come to the festival to find your soul or your soul mate, for a good time or a good argument, at some point we think you'll see that spark in the darkness: something enlightening, perhaps dazzling, occasionally brilliant, always illuminating. Enjoy!