JFI On Demand | Jewish Film Institute

Exhibition Series

2020 JFI Completion Grants
2021 JFI Completion Grants
2022 JFI Completion Grants
2023 JFI Completion Grants
2024 Filmmakers in Residence
2024 JFI Completion Grants
40th Holiday Festival
Cinegogue Summer Days
Co-Presentation 2007
Co-Presentation 2008
Co-Presentation 2009
Co-Presentation 2010
Co-Presentation 2013
Co-Presentation 2014
Israel in Motion
JFI/JSP Momentum Awards
Magnes
Member Screening 2005
Member Screening 2006
Member Screening 2011
Member Screening 2012
Member Screening 2013
Member Screening 2014
Member Screening 2015
Member Screening 2016
Member Screening 2017
Member Screening 2018
Member Screening 2020
Member Screening 2021
SFJFF 1981
SFJFF 1982
SFJFF 1983
SFJFF 1984
SFJFF 1985
SFJFF 1986
SFJFF 1987
SFJFF 1988
SFJFF 1989
SFJFF 1990
SFJFF 1991
SFJFF 1992
SFJFF 1993
SFJFF 1994
SFJFF 1995
SFJFF 1996
SFJFF 1997
SFJFF 1998
SFJFF 1999
SFJFF 2000
SFJFF 2001
SFJFF 2002
SFJFF 2003
SFJFF 2004
SFJFF 2005
SFJFF 2006
SFJFF 2007
SFJFF 2008
SFJFF 2009
SFJFF 2010
SFJFF 2011
SFJFF 2012
SFJFF 2013
SFJFF 2014
SFJFF 2015
SFJFF 2016
SFJFF 2017
SFJFF 2018
SFJFF 2019
SFJFF 2021
SFJFF 2023
SFJFF at JCCSF
SFJFF Madrid
SFJFF Moscow
Stories She Tells
Sundance
Urban Adamah
WinterFest 2014
WinterFest 2015
WinterFest 2016
WinterFest 2017
WinterFest 2018
WinterFest 2019
Winterfest 2020
WinterFest 2021
WinterFest 2022
YBCA

JFI On Demand

Anti-Semitism
Black History Month
ChaiFlicks
Cinegogue Sessions
Comedy
Coming of Age
Curator Picks
Filmmaker Distributed
Films for the High Holidays
Holocaust
Israeli Films
J Weekly Top 10 Israeli Films
JFI Completion Grantee
JFI Resident
LGBTQ
Religion & Spirituality
Short Films
Social Justice
Streaming Service
WinterFest
Women's History Month
Yom HaShoah: Holocaust Remembrance

Film Type

Animation
Documentary
Experimental
Narrative
Television Series

Program Type

Cinegogue Sessions
Cinegogue Summer Days
Festival
Member Screening
Next Wave
Stories She Tells
Sundance Film Festival
WinterFest 2018
WinterFest 2019
WinterFest 2020
WinterFest 2021

Filtered By: Israel Clear All

10% - What Makes a Hero?

Checkpoint (SFJFF 2004) and Defamation (SFJFF 2009) established Israeli documentarian Yoav Shamir as an unapologetic provocateur. Michael Moore executive produced the filmmaker’s newest film, a globetrotting quest to identify the shared characteristics of heroic individuals. From a bonobo preserve in Congo to the suburban home of a Flemish woman whose family harbored Jews during WWII, Shamir takes viewers on a fascinating journey that is sure to spark thoughtful conversation and passionate debate.

5 Days

On August 15, 2005, Israeli defense forces were about to forcibly remove some 8,000 remaining Jewish settlers from their homes, schools, farms and synagogues in Gaza. This documentary gives us a front-row seat to the unfolding drama that many feared would cause catastrophic violence. Deploying eight camera crews simultaneously, Shamir gains unprecedented access to all sides of the confrontation as it happens.Followed in Berkeley by panel discussion.

500 Dunam on the Moon

About This Film

Africa

Struggling with life post-retirement, 68-year-old Meir fights to restore his shaken sense of self. Director Oren Gerner blurs the lines between documentary and fiction, casting his own father as a man struggling against irrelevance and decline. Preceded by the short film, Long Distance.

Aida's Secrets

Family secrets and lies are revealed in this documentary detective story which begins with World War II and ends with a 21st-century reunion of long lost brothers. With the help of a genealogical search organization, Izak, an Israeli kibbutznik, finally meets the Canadian blind younger brother he did not know he had, when both are in their mid-60s. Embracing one another, they work hard to try to pry secrets loose from their tight-lipped mother Aida. - Sara L. Rubin

Alila

In a working-class Tel Aviv neighborhood, the turbulent and poignant lives of illicit lovers, a divorced couple whose son has gone AWOL from the army, the ex-wife’s younger lover, an elderly Holocaust survivor, illegal foreign workers, and a half-crazed policewoman all converge. Renowned director Amos Gitai’s visually powerful and emotionally masterful ensemble drama is a microcosm of Israeli society.

Ashkenaz

Ashkenaz, a pithy but panoramic view of Israel’s “white” Jews, undermines any preconceived notions of Jewish ethnicity. Director Rachel Leah Jones, a Berkeley native, flits from experts and scholars to just plain folks to reveal a nonhomogeneous Ashkenazi population seen through the eyes of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Israelis. It’s a fascinating study in diversity within a single word.

Asia | Stories She Tells

Shira Haas (Unorthodox) delivers an unforgettable performance as a teenager suffering from a deteriorating illness that brings her closer to her single mother in this powerful drama that is Israel’s Foreign Language Oscar Entry for 2020.

The Attack

By all appearances Palestinian-Israeli surgeon Amin Jaafari (Ali Suliman, Lemon Tree, Paradise Now) has it all. As an admired and respected member of his profession he has carved a space for himself and his wife Sihem at the crossroads of two troubled societies. Jaafari’s world is abruptly shattered when Sihem goes missing in a Tel Aviv suicide bombing. As Israeli police evidence mounts, it appears that Sihem could have been responsible.

Awake Zion

Traveling from Jamaica to Jerusalem and set against a rock steady soundtrack, Awake Zion director Monica Haim uncovers the connections between davening and the dance hall, payos and dreadlocks, Jews and Rastafarians. By weaving together the perspectives and experiences of scholars and ska artists, rabbis and reggae stars, this rousing documentary takes us around the globe and through time, speaking powerfully to the history and spirituality shared by these two peoples.

Aya

Aya unwittingly finds herself holding a passenger pickup sign at the airport for a Mr. Overby (Ulrich Thomsen, The Celebration). He arrives: tall, handsome, and Danish. Enchanted by this random encounter, Aya decides to pose as his driver. The romantic tension between the two strangers builds as they get closer to Mr. Overby’s Jerusalem hotel, yet Aya’s true intentions remain hidden until the surprising final act.

Baba Joon

Israel’s submission to the 2015 Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film surprises in many ways. For starters, the screenplay is almost entirely in Farsi, not Hebrew. The semi-autobiographical feature film debut from writer/director Yuval Delshad depicts three generations in the Morgian family, Persian immigrants from Iran to Israel eking out a living as rural turkey farmers. Sensitive performances, gentle pacing and refreshing plot twists combine to weave a richly satisfying story. —Emily Kaiser Thelin

Beaufort

Near the end of the war in Lebanon, a group of Israeli soldiers defends an isolated mountain outpost next to a 12th-century fortress called Beaufort Castle.

Before the Revolution

It seems unbelievable now, but before the 1979 revolution Iran and Israel were close allies. Filmmaker Dan Shadur was only a baby when his family lived in Tehran with a view of the revolution unfolding below their balcony. Here he follows a group of Israeli transplants who witnessed the good life spiral into chaos with the approach of the Islamic revolution in this real life Argo doc thriller.

Bethlehem

BETHLEHEM tells the story of the unlikely bond between Razi, an Israeli secret service officer, and his Palestinian informant Sanfur.

Beyond the Fear

In 2005, Israeli scholar and divorced mother of four Larisa Trembovler married Yigal Amir, the infamous assassin of much-loved Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In 2007, after a series of conjugal visits, she gave birth to her fifth child, Amir’s son. It’s their son that documentarians Herz Frank and Maria Kravchenko skillfully build the film around as they reexamine the years of moral complexities surrounding his parents’ union.

Beyond the Walls

About This Film

Blue Box

The Jewish National Fund's ubiquitous Blue Boxes were an internationally successful fundraising campaign to support the purchase and forestation of land in Israel. This thought-provoking documentary focuses on Joseph Weits, a seminal figure in the growth of the organization, its tree-planting programs and the subsequent myth-building of a national narrative.

Blues by the Beach

When Jack Baxter and Joshua Faudem chose to make a documentary about Mike’s Place, an Anglo-American blues club on a Tel Aviv beach, they figured the boozy international hangout would show a side of Israel different from the all-too-familiar images of terrorism and conflict. But when Mike’s Place is bombed in a suicide attack, their film turns into an unexpectedly vivid account of coping with daily life in the wake of violence.

Blush

Seventeen-year-old Naama is thoroughly bored with her overbearing family and uneventful suburban school days. That is until bleached-blonde bad girl Dana shows up with her flirtatious smile and a bag of weed. But while Naama is both partying hard and falling hard for Dana, her sister goes missing, and the whole family is deeply rattled. Blush is a portrait of modern Israel through the eyes of the youth who are pushing the boundaries. —Alexis Whitman

Bobbi Jene

“I want to get to that place where I have no strength to hide anything.” After a decade of stardom in Israel as part of the illustrious Batsheva Dance Company, dancer/choreographer Bobbi Jene Smith at age 30 pursues a solo career in the U.S. Winner of the Best Documentary prize at the Tribeca Film Festival, Bobbi Jene is a portrait of a dancer which is as unflinching, wondrous and embarrassing as life itself.

Born in Auschwitz

This is the story of a Jewish baby who was born in the death camp before the liberation and survived. An extraordinary journey of the second and third generation, breaking the cycle of trauma to free themselves from Auschwitz - forever.

Born in Auschwitz

The untold story of the only Jewish baby who was born in the death camp before the liberation an survived. An extraordinary journey of the second and third generation, breaking the cycle of trauma to free themselves from Auschwitz – forever.

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea

This modern-day Romeo-and-Juliet tale is set in Israel and Gaza. After witnessing a suicide bombing, a girl writes a letter to Gaza seeking understanding and sends it into the Gaza Sea in a bottle. It’s found by a young Gaza man who emails back. Though they live less than 100 kilometers apart, they communicate only through emails and letters. While they often disagree, their relationship deepens as the political situation worsens. [MINIGUIDE 71/70]

Need help using JFI On Demand? See our FAQ page.