SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL | SFJFF 2010

Screens with Escape From Suburbia

In the 1970s, under a brutal military dictatorship, thousands of Argentineans were “disappeared” by the violent hand of the political regime. A disproportionate number of Jews were among the victims, including students and young activists. Te Extraño (I Miss You), a moving coming-of-age tale with teenage brothers at its center, is director Fabian Hofman’s semi-autobiographical story of a Jewish family caught up in his country’s so-called Dirty War. Intense 15-year-old Javier watches his middle-class existence come apart as his radical leftist brother Adrian, whom he idolizes, risks all to stand up against the right-wing military takeover. With Adrian's fate a mystery, his distraught family sends young Javier north to safety with relatives in Mexico. Hofman’s tone, by turns bittersweet and lyrical as well as sharp and suspenseful, makes Te Extraño an engrossing and memorable experience, which builds forcefully in the second half of the story as Javier, now far from home, presses his remaining family members to confront the truth they know in their hearts but cannot bring themselves to face.—Thomas Logoreci

Note: this film is appropriate for ages 14 and up.

Ticketholders to the July 24 screening are invited upstairs to the Castro Mezzanine beginning at 12:30pm. Enjoy bagels, meet multi-media artists and sample more of the New Jewish Filmmaking Project’s "Half-Remembered Stories."

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