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Lev Syrkin was a successful artist in Moscow who dreamed of pursuing artistic and personal freedom in Israel.

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The process of learning a language is always fraught with humor, frustration—and pantomime. A Hebrew Lesson opens with a scene that might seem familiar, as Yoela, the teacher at a Hebrew immersion class (or ulpan) in Tel Aviv, introduces herself in Hebrew relying on simple body language.

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This wonderful and often hilarious documentary follows a once famous Canadian heavy metal band, founded in the 1970s by two nice Jewish boys, and still rocking on.

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Whether it leaves you in stitches or up in arms, this irreverent Israeli Arab sitcom will bring you the Middle East conflict as you’ve never seen it before.

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A pithy but panoramic view of Israel’s “white” Jews, revealing a surprisingly diverse group, seen through the eyes of a Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Israelis.

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“The Coops,” cooperative Bronx apartments, symbolized an experiment in justice and equality. Tthis documentary portrays the workers who embraced communist, socialist and union movements.

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Yves Jeuland’s extraordinary documentary captures centuries of Jewish life in France in two episodes broadcast on French television to critical acclaim.

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An important documentation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seen through one village’s struggle, using stunning guerilla aesthetics that capture unique moments of desperation, courage and fear.

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Black Over White chronicles the Ethiopian concert tour by Israeli-Ethiopian-Yemenite world-beat band The Idan Raichel Project.

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Roberta Grossman’s first-rate documentary Blessed Is the Match, narrated by three-time Academy Award nominee Joan Allen, is a paean to Hungarian resistance fighter and poet Hannah Senesh.

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A cache of home movies shot in the Netherlands before and during World War II tells the devastating story of the Peereboom family. Screening with The Danube Exodus.

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An inspiring portrait of South Africa’s outrageous, controversial and brilliant political satirist (and occasional drag entertainer) Pieter-Dirk Uys, who now uses humor and rage to combat HIV/AIDS.

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A young boy joyfully rides a pushcart down the hilly streets of Haifa, a humped camel crosses a street, and an innocent girl paints an unseen picture in what may best represent the emergence of a new country and its unknown future.

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A surprise visitor (Gabriel Byrne) triggers turbulent childhood memories of love and loss among war survivors (Susan Sarandon, Max von Sydow) in this achingly beautiful story set in modern Quebec. Co-starring Christopher Plummer.

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Two love stories: one from the 1940s between two Italian Jews and one contemporary story of neighbors who watch each other furtively from facing windows across a street.

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Every year, the cloud forests of India’s Himalayan foothills provide the ideal escape for some 30,000 young Israelis just released from mandatory military service.

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In this gripping documentary, filmmaker Joanna Rudnick turns the camera on herself as she struggles with an impossible choice—–remove her healthy breasts and ovaries or risk a staggeringly high likelihood of developing aggressive cancer. Followed by filmmaker Q&A.

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Imagine you are in therapy and your shrink is a thoughtful, badly dressed bear of a man who resembles Israeli actor Assi Dayan. Then imagine that when the transference and countertransference are flying so fast you can see trails, your shrink goes to talk to his shrink—who happens to be the all-knowing Israeli grande dame of cinema, Gila Almagor.

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In 2006, Jerusalem hosted the World Pride events, which were planned to culminate in a gay pride parade. Nitzan Gilady’s award-winning documentary weaves together the passions of gay rights activists and religious Jews, Muslims and Christians who oppose them.

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From rapid koshering services to the tale of a macho young man afraid to jump from a high place, and capped by a sneak preview of the latest film from SFJFF’s New Jewish Filmmaking Project, this program is a fun and sometimes poignant sample of young Jewish creativity.

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Three intertwined stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer. At the center is the elderly writer Max (Otto Tausig), whose vivid imagination merges life with fiction. Co-starring Rhea Perlman & Tovah Feldshuh.

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A fun, family-oriented comedy about a bookish 12-year-old girl in modern Berlin who neglects her bat mitzvah studies in order to become a basketball player.

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The dramatic life of a Jewish Viennese beauty queen as recorded in home movies by the man who loved her from a distance—her cousin.

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This intimate documentary portrays the unlikely friendship between an undocumented Palestinian worker and his Israeli employer, veteran peace activist Moshe Amirav.

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A wistful portrait of Tel Aviv-Jaffa’s quirky small shops—a button store, an (analog) watch repair shop, an old-fashioned barber—as they wrestle with their fast-paced surroundings and contemplate change in the face of modernization.

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Operation Mural is the incredible but true story of the smuggling of 530 Jewish Moroccan children to Israel, under the guise of a holiday trip to Switzerland, in the spring of 1961.

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Out of Focus captures the creativity of Ohad Naharin, Israel’s “rock star” choreographer and director of Batsheva Dance Company.

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What makes a man risk his life for people he doesn’t know? Perlasca is a taut drama about one Italian man’s remarkable courage in saving 5,200 Hungarian Jews.

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An excellent documentary about the contentious struggle of Women of the Wall for the right to wear prayer shawls and read Torah scrolls aloud at the Western Wall.

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The Quest for the Missing Piece is a hilarious romp through the debate over circumcision.

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With wit and charm, this documentary follows two lively eighty-somethings back to the scene where, by a fluke of history, they survived the Holocaust: in Stalin’s Siberian gulag.

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Naomi and Michelle come to Safed to study in an orthodox women’s seminary. While seeking spiritual knowledge, they embark upon a secret journey of rituals and forbidden love.

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A London boy’s bar mitzvah party is threatened by a coinciding soccer match in this charming nostalgic comedy. Helena Bonham Carter and Stephen Rea co-star.

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In today’s Kiev, masked characters in colorful traditional attire dance in a circle for the winter celebration of Koliada; one dancer steps forward, pulls fake products from his pockets and begins a barter monologue, enacting the traditional stereotype of “the Jew.”

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During the early 1960s, a new pulp lit emerged in Israel. “Stalags” pocketbooks featured camp prisoners sexually assaulted by buxom SS officers. Controversial and popular, Stalags were condemned as porn. This documentary asks, what did they really mean?

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Handsome Eyal and knockout Rana meet by chance on a subway in Berlin. But he’s Israeli and she’s Palestinian—setting in motion a passionate story exploring the boundaries of nationality, culture and the heart.

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A father’s mysterious disappearance throws his family into a personal and spiritual crisis in this engrossing, beautifully acted drama set in modern Jerusalem.

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This free-spirited and mesmerizing docu-fiction hybrid explores the complexity of modern womanhood and the fragility of human relationships.

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The harrowing story of a Gaza-born woman locked in the battle of a lifetime for custody of her six children, and locked out of the legal process.

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To See If I’m Smiling tells the powerful stories of six Israeli women soldiers who did their army service in combat units in the occupied territories.

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The popular Trio Lescano—three Dutch Jewish sisters—were the 1930s Italian equivalent of the Andrews Sisters in the 30s, until fascism forced them into silence.

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In this comedic drama, a Parisian schoolteacher’s newfound independence puts a strain on her conventional family when an attractive publisher takes an interest in her writing.

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A unique window into the Italian Jewish Holocaust experience, this documentary features testimonies of nine Italians who survived Auschwitz, including Liliana Segre, who will be present for an onstage interview after the screening.

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The men who volunteered to crew the Exodus were a ragtag team of Jewish World War II veterans from several countries and mariners with a conscience from all over the world. Their recollections are the masts upon which Jean-Michel Vecchiet hangs the structure of his impeccably researched documentary about the ship Exodus ’47, which was both haven and prison to thousands of Holocaust survivors.