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When Rebecca, an American, ditches her fiancé in Israel, she finds solace with tough, pragmatic Hanna, a Russian-Israeli limo driver. Hanna is headed for the "free zone" in Jordan to pick up money owed to her husband. There, they cross paths with Leila, a Palestinian businesswoman, and the three women form an inextricable bond despite their disparate backgrounds and views. A film about borders and terrain, both political and psychological.

The Freedom to Marry

The Freedom to Marry

What’s the definition of a mensch? After watching this inspiring documentary, you’ll have a two-word answer: Evan Wolfson. Founder of the advocacy group Freedom to Marry and the acknowledged “godfather” of the marriage equality movement, Wolfson’s 30-year struggle to bring about justice for millions of gays and lesbians is the heart of this fascinating history that retraces the circuitous path towards legalizing same-sex marriage in the United States. —Peter L. Stein

A classic better appreciated decades after its release, The Front is a comedy about a deadly serious subject. Woody Allen portrays a somewhat naïve front for a trio of blacklisted television writers; Zero Mostel, in a role based partly on his own story, plays a Blacklist victim who cannot betray his Jewishness. Walter Bernstein got a much-deserved Oscar® nomination for Best Screenplay.

A journalist (Ruth Rieser) wants a Holocaust survivor (Peter Simonischek) to testify against a former Nazi.

Each year, the Hermelin family of Detroit come together to celebrate Passover (pesach) - honoring the liberation of the Jews from slavery in ancient Egypt - by eating Gefilte fish, the meal that stars in New York-born director Rachel Fleit's new film. While simple on the surface, gefilte is filled with history and meaning (just like the recipe itself, which includes a stuffing of fish, salt, vegetables and egg). However, "the dish of gefilte isn't about the fish," says the Brooklyn-based writer and director. Instead, "it becomes a lightening rod, in which we project all of our feelings about family, identity, tradition, struggle, loss - and as always, love.""

A Generation Apart

A Generation Apart

About This Film

Germans and Jews

Germans and Jews

This thoughtful documentary is a subtle examination of the history of Germany’s postwar Jewish population and of the fraught and fragile relations between Jews and non-Jews. Structured around a dinner party attended by Germans and Jews—some of whom were born in Germany, some who are “Germans by choice”—the film negotiates sensitive questions of memory, guilt, identity and redemption with grace and aplomb while giving access to both sides of a crucial historical dialogue. —Seth Barron*SJM: Single Jewish Mom Free Screening

Gett: The Trial of Vivian Amsalem

Gett: The Trial of Vivian Amsalem

In Israel there is neither civil marriage nor civil divorce. Only Rabbis can legitimate a marriage or its dissolution. But this dissolution is only possible with full consent from the husband, who in the end has more power than the judges.

This Sundance award-winning documentary confronts the legacy of the landmark US Supreme Court decision in Gideon vs. Wainwright, which established the right to legal representation for indigent clients in criminal cases. Filmmaker Dawn Porter tracks three understaffed and underfunded public defenders in the South as they struggle to represent their clients. Gideon's Army shines a much deserved light on these unsung civil rights heroes of our times.

If you think you know Gilbert Gottfried, the brash, shrill-voiced (“Aflac!”), boundary-pushing comic, think again. In this surprisingly candid documentary portrait, director Neil Berkeley reveals the foul-mouthed comedian in a whole new light as a loving husband and father of two young children. Featuring interviews with comics like Whoopi Goldberg and behind-the-scenes glimpses of Gottfried’s performances, Gilbert separates the man from the act, and what emerges is unexpectedly tender.

About This Film

Give Me Liberty

Give Me Liberty

When a riot breaks out in Milwaukee, America's most segregated city, medical transport driver Vic is torn between his promise to get a group of elderly Russians to a funeral and his desire to help Tracy, a young black woman with ALS.

Marty Glickman was an inspiration to millions. Featuring interviews with Bob Costas, Bill Bradley and Marv Albert, this documentary brilliantly captures Glickman’s life as an athlete, a pioneering sports broadcaster (he coined the term “swish”), and as a passionate advocate of sports as a means of transcending divisions created by race, class and religion. If you loved The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, this movie is for you. [MINIGUIDE 69/70]

Journalist, fighter, and feminist Gloria Steinem is an indelible icon known for her world-shaping activism, her guidance of the revolutionary women’s movement, and her writing that has impacted generations. In this nontraditional biopic, against the backdrop of a lonely bus on an open highway, five Glorias trace Steinem’s influential journey to prominence.

Go for Zucker! - An Unorthodox Comedy

Go for Zucker! - An Unorthodox Comedy

Jaeckie Zucker, a hard-drinking, pool-playing, lovable scoundrel in Berlin, is up to his ears in debt. When he learns that his long-estranged mother has willed him a sizeable inheritance, he thinks his ship has come in. But there’s a catch: Jaeckie--who gave up all things Jewish long ago--must first reconcile with his Orthodox Jewish brother, who is coming, family in tow, for the funeral. The madcap adventure that follows finds Jaeckie desperately trying to "pass" as observant, while trying to ditch the funeral so he can play in a high-stakes pool tournament.Politically incorrect, ironic and utterly contemporary, what makes Go for Zucker! such a standout is that, while in the irreverent mode of Mel Brooks and Larry David, this is a comedy from Germany--daring to present Jews in a guilt-free context beyond the Holocaust. Berlin-based writer/director Dani Levy has created a screwball comedy that breaks every taboo.

Buenos Aires, 1994. Ahmed, a committed Muslim martyr, works as a successful young surgeon. But his destiny, when the inevitable day arrives, is to carry out an attack for radical Islam. Meanwhile, David, a cold-blooded Mossad agent, awaits the opportunity to exact some very personal revenge. This pulse-pounding thriller pits two determined men against each other in the aftermath of the deadly real-life bombings in Buenos Aries against the Jewish community.

About This Film

The Good Postman

The Good Postman

Golyam Dervent, Bulgaria: When gentle village postman Ivan runs for mayor on the platform of welcoming Syrian refugees, the outcome of this humble election (to be decided by fewer than 50 voters) soon takes on all the trappings of a high drama campaign. This often funny, always absorbing documentary that screened at the Sundance Film Festival shows the uneasy confrontation of a small village with the wider world during a time of humanitarian crisis.

The Green Prince

The Green Prince

The Green Prince is such an extraordinary story that one is tempted to think it is fiction. Based on Mosab Hassan Yousef’s memoir, Son of Hamas, it is a story of two men, spy and handler, whom history insists must be adversaries. That they could reach a point of trust or friendship seems absurd. Embroidering a tangled web of intrigue, terror, and betrayal, director Nadav Schirman builds superb tension throughout a surprisingly emotional journey.

Guy Hircefeld, a Guy with a Camera

Guy Hircefeld, a Guy with a Camera

Guy Hircefeld, a veteran that served in the Israeli military at the start of its occupation of Palestine in the 1980s, now fights against Israeli occupation, ethnic cleansing, and environmental warfare. His only weapon is a camera.

Flamenco, the Gypsy-, Jewish-, Arab- and Andalusian-inspired art form, is loved around the world. But what happens when a white boy with Alabama roots falls in love with flamenco and becomes a renowned flamenco guitarist? Gypsy Davy tells the story of David Jones aka David Serva from the perspective of the five women in his life and his children—one of them, the filmmaker, who was abandoned by the musician when she was a year old. With searing honesty and wry humor, Serva’s daughter Rachel unravels a series of tangled lives and forges new possibilities. [MINIGUIDE 94/100]

Shalom Nagar is a Yemeni Jew living in Israel and working as a ritual butcher. He was also, as a young man, the prison guard and eventual executioner of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi chief who organized the transportation of Jews to the concentration camps. A fascinating and complex portrait of Nagar, an endearing and wise man whose simple, refreshing voice from the margins of Israeli society bears a profoundly humanistic message.

This sophisticated drama about the life, career and loves of German Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) shines a light on one of the greatest independent thinkers of the 20th century. When New Yorker magazine sends her to Jerusalem in 1961 to witness the trial of the notorious Nazi, Adolph Eichmann, Arendt begins to formulate her now famous concept ”the banality of evil” that opens up a flood of controversy.

Harbour of Hope

Harbour of Hope

In the spring of 1945 Irene, Ewa and Joe were among the nearly 30,000 survivors liberated from German concentration camps by the Red Cross and sent to the peaceful harbor town of Malmö, Sweden. Here they started life again. The survivors heartbreaking, yet life-affirming personal life journeys culminate in an emotionally powerful film about dealing with repressed wartime memories, the importance of a helping hand and finding a “harbor of hope.” [MINIGUIDE 72/70]

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