Panels and Discussions
Free to ticket holders for the film that precedes the panel, or as noted. (In addition to the discussions listed below, many films are followed by Q&A’s with invited guest artists and scholars.)
Sunday, July 22
Jewish Boxers: Shtarkers and the Sweet Science
Following the 7:00pm screening of Orthodox Stance, Castro Theatre.
Please join us for panel on Jewish boxers and boxing films with noted boxing writers and historians Mike Silver and Don Cogswell, Orthodox Stance director Jason Hutt and subject Dmitriy Salita, and special guests. Why have there been more Jews in boxing than any other professional sport? How did “Slapsie” Maxie Rosenbloom get his name? It certainly wasn’t from his mother!
Sunday July 22
Conversation with Arianné Ulmer Cipes
Following the 9:45pm screening of My Son, the Hero, Castro Theatre.
Join Arianné Ulmer Cipes, Edgar G. Ulmer’s daughter and founder of the Edgar G. Ulmer Preservation Corp., for a Q&A about her father’s extraordinary filmmaking legacy. Edgar G. Ulmer was a Jewish émigré from Austria who was as skilled at making Yiddish film and American comedy as he was at making film noir.
Tuesday July 24
Breaking Taboos: Jews and Germans Today
Following the 4:00pm screening of Just an Ordinary Jew, and preceding the 6:45pm screening of My Fuehrer, Castro Theatre.
Free admission with ticket to either screening. Panelists include Rolf Schütte, Consul General of Germany in San Francisco and author of "German-Jewish Relations, Today and Tomorrow: A German Perspective" (2005); Dani Levy (2007 SFJFF Freedom of Expression Award winner and director of My Fuehrer); and Janis Plotkin, film programmer at Mill Valley Film Festival and frequent lecturer on the Jewish-German encounter in film. Moderated by SFJFF Executive Director Peter L. Stein.
Tuesday July 24
2007 SFJFF Freedom of Expression Award
Q&A with director Dani Levy and award presentation following the 6:45 pm screening of My Fuehrer at the Castro Theatre.
Saturday July 28
The State of Israeli Documentary Filmmaking
Following the 1:50pm screening of Wasted, Roda Theatre, Berkeley.
A cadre of Israel’s best documentary filmmakers will address the unique challenges and satisfactions of creating documentaries in Israel. Invited participants include filmmakers Nurit Kedar (Borders, Lebanon Dream, Wasted), Duki Dror (Mr. Cortisone, Happy Days; Sidewalk), Shimon Dotan (Hot House), Ido Haar (9 Star Hotel), Gilli Mendel (I Am You Are producer and director of the Jerusalem Cinematheque’s Media and Film Education Department) and moderator Ruth Diskin (managing director of Jerusalem-based Ruth Diskin Films Ltd., an international distributor of documentaries and made-for-TV dramas).
Saturday August 4
Crypto-Jews Today: The Longing to Belong
Following the 4:45pm screening of The Longing, Roda Theatre, Berkeley.
Participants include Gabriela Böhm (director, The Longing); Scott Rubin (co-author, In Every Tongue: Racial & Ethnic Diversity of the Jewish People) (moderator); and Mercedes Gail Gutierrez of Davis, CA -- she is a Mexican American descendant of b'nei anusim (Crypto-Jews) who returned to the practice of Judaism a few years ago.