Devour these standout titles that celebrate the printed page, either through profiles of celebrated writers or adaptations that breathe new life into well-loved or lesser-known stories.
Budapest, 1936. As the specter of the Third Reich rises beyond the Hungarian border, a newspaper reporter becomes obsessed with the mysterious death of a young woman. His dogged pursuit of her identity draws him into the most craven and corrupt corners of the city, revealing buried family secrets and burgeoning social terror. A spellbinding detective story filled with actual hardboiled history.
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The economy in mythical Utopia is in the dumpster, and who is blamed? The usual scapegoat: the Jews. After the Jews are expelled, however, the economy, missing their invaluable participation, actually takes a turn for the worse, and Utopia begs them to come back. This 1924 silent Austrian satire is an object lesson in the absurdity of such thinking, and an unwitting prediction of the horrific events in Europe ten years later.
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Dutch filmmakers Stephane Kaas and Rutger Lemm create a delightfully surrealistic documentary about the beloved Israeli writer and humorist. Weaving animation, live action and interviews, the film takes us deep into the psyche of Keret, a son of Holocaust survivors, whose fiction explores the absurdities of daily life. Like friends Ira Glass and Jonathan Safran Foer, you’ll be charmed by Keret and be left with an intense desire to read (or reread) his stories.
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In Nazi-occupied Paris, the young writer Marguerite Duras strikes up a delicate, high stakes entanglement with a Vichy collaborator named Rabier, who promises preferential treatment for her imprisoned husband in exchange for her attention and collaboration. As the drumbeat of arrests of Jews and political dissidents continues, the now-celebrated experimental author is wracked with fear for her husband and the friends and anti-Nazi activists whose identities Rabier pressures her to reveal.
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The late Lithuanian-French novelist and writer Romain Gary was called many things in his life: a fabulist, a poor Jew, a literary genius, a born statesman. In this adaptation of his autobiographical novel, Romain is presented as the son of a fervent single mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) whose ambitions for him are darkened by narcissism. We see both the value and the price of her grandiose dreams, which Romain is forced to adopt as his own.
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Is there a novel that changed your life? The Great American Read is an eight-part PBS series that explores and celebrates the power of reading through the lens of America's 100 best-loved novels. Vote for your favorite novel from the list, check out KQED interviews with authors and more.
Learn More$175 Members / $200 General Public
The SFJFF38 Palo Alto Pass is valid for all shows at the CineArts Theatre in Palo Alto.