San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 30 by San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

SFJFf30: TALK ABOUT It

Dana Doron PRESIDENT

Frederick Hertz VICE PRESIDENT & TREASURER

Gale Mondry SECRETARY

Ron Blatman Sandee Blechman Susie Coliver Gail Dolgin Cary Kletter Sasha Kovriga George Krevsky Adrienne Leder Pam Rorke Levy Douglas Okun Rachel Pfeffer Scott Rubin Naomi Seidman Dan Wohlfeiler

STAFf Peter L. Stein EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Owen Levin ADMINISTR ATIVE DIRECTOR

Jay Rosenblatt Program Director, SFJFF30

Allyson Halpern Development Director

Joshua Moore Associate Programmer

Kerri Gawryn Development & Membership Associate

Shira Zucker Manager, Marketing/PR

Doug Blakely Administrative Coordinator

Our first 30 years have been quite a ride–sometimes a rollercoaster, sometimes a rocketship–as the world’s first and largest Jewish film festival. As we enter our thirties we feel a little wiser, but no less adventurous. In fact, we are proud to have been named this year one of the 50 most innovative Jewish organizations in the U.S. (by the Slingshot Fund) and one of the top 50 film festivals in the world (by IndieWire). You’ll see from this year’s lineup we’re not resting on our laurels, forging ahead with the very best in Jewish cinema. No single film, no single program defines us. We are a festival that celebrates diversity, albeit in a Jewish context. Diversity of voices, of expression and of opinion. There is something here for every interest – whether it is a film celebrating the relationship between Jews and America’s national pastime (Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story) or the discovery of missing reels of Nazi propaganda footage of the Warsaw Ghetto (A Film Unfinished). Search through the 57 films and you will find something new to learn, marvel at, and certainly to talk about. We kick things off with a masterful drama about moral courage in desperate times: Saviors in the Night, set during World War II, promises to be a memorable opener with special guests arriving from around the world and a terrific new Saturday night party. And What is an anniversary celebration without music? We present three music films/events and a “live documentary.” Hungry Hearts, a 1922 silent Lower East Side melodrama, gets a contemporary treatment with an original folk–psychedelic score performed live. The “Socalled” Movie, an extremely entertaining portrait of the Canadian Jewish rapper Socalled, will culminate in a live performance following the Castro screening. Our music–filled closing night film is the Northern California premiere of The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground, and local treasure Sam Green will “perform” his live documentary Utopia in Four Movements one time only in Berkeley. Unique events for a unique festival. This year’s SFJFF Freedom of Expression Award goes to Israel’s most prominent satirist Sayed Kashua. In tribute, we present the American premiere of new episodes from Arab Labor: Season 2 and a documentary about our honoree (Sayed Kashua – Forever Scared), part of a sidebar of five films examining writers’ lives (People of the Book, page 10). Former SFJFF Program Director Nancy K. Fishman returns as guest curator of a marvelous archival series, Tough Guys: Images of Jewish Gangsters in Film (page 7), with four genre classics and a panel discussion illuminating the myths and realities of a complex underworld. We continue our tradition of presenting work that provides a catalyst for discussion with a film about a nonviolent movement protesting the route of Israel’s security wall (Budrus), the story of six Israeli and Palestinian teenage girls searching for peaceful coexistence (My So Called Enemy), and a free discussion, Is Dialogue Possible? How Films Help Us Talk About Israel (….Or Not) (see page 31). The breathtaking range of Israeli filmmaking is strongly represented again this year in features (Bena, Jaffa, Mrs. Moscowitz and the Cats among others) and an entire program of exquisite shorts (Jews in Shorts). To all the filmmakers, supporters, sponsors and audience members who have helped build this remarkable festival over thirty years—thank you! We welcome you to your festival. And do talk about it. Just wait till the lights come back on...

Ada Chester Bookkeeper

Chris Smith Digital Archive Coordinator

Dana Doron

Jay Rosenblatt

Peter L. Stein

president, board of directors

Program director, sfjff30

Executive director

20-SomethingS

Baabaa the Sheep Sets Out to Bring Love to the World Dor Half-Remembered Stories The “Socalled” Movie Surrogate Te Extraño (I Miss You) Tom Utopia in Four Movements You Won’t Miss Me AnimAtion

The Orange Patriot A Room and a Half Stalin Thought of You Anti-SemitiSm

Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades Gruber’s Journey Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story Protektor Stalin Thought of You War Against the Weak Comedy

Arab Labor: Season 2 Baabaa the Sheep Sets Out to Bring Love to the World Ilusiones Ópticas Maurice at the World’s Fair What About Me? The Worst Company in the World

Jews in Shorts: Focus on Israeli Narratives Jaffa King of the Roaring 20’s – The Story of Arnold Rothstein Lepke Mrs. Moscowitz and the Cats Protektor Saviors in the Night Scarface Surrogate Te Extraño (I Miss You) The Wolberg Family You Won’t Miss Me fAmily relAtionShipS

9 Years Later Anita Army of Crime Bena Budrus Father’s Footsteps Ilusiones Ópticas Ingelore Jaffa Long Distance Perfect Mother Perin’s Dual Identity A Room and a Half Saviors in the Night Stalin Thought of You Surrogate Surviving Hitler: A Love Story Te Extraño (I Miss You) The Wolberg Family The Worst Company in the World

Coming of Age

Father’s Footsteps My So Called Enemy Perin’s Dual Identity Surviving Hitler: A Love Story Te Extraño (I Miss You) The Wolberg Family

former Soviet Union/rUSSiA

My Perestroika A Room and a Half Stalin Thought of You You Can Dance

Half-Remembered Stories King of the Roaring 20’s – The Story of Arnold Rothstein My Perestroika A Room and a Half Seltzer Works Stalin Thought of You Utopia in Four Movements

Anita Bena Ingelore drAmA

Anita Army of Crime Bena Bugsy Father’s Footsteps Gruber’s Journey

Bugsy Father’s Footsteps King of the Roaring 20’s – The Story of Arnold Rothstein Lepke Scarface hiStory

Ahead of Time Bugsy Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story

9 Years Later Army of Crime Ingelore Jaffa Surrogate Te Extraño (I Miss You) mUSiC And performAnCe

holoCAUSt And WWii

Ahead of Time Army of Crime Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades A Film Unfinished Gruber’s Journey Ingelore Patriot Protektor Stalin Thought of You Surviving Hitler: A Love Story War Against the Weak

Hungry Hearts The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground The “Socalled” Movie Utopia in Four Movements relAtionShipS/romAnCe

Ilusiones Ópticas Jaffa Mrs. Moscowitz and the Cats Surrogate Surviving Hitler: A Love Story Tom You Won’t Miss Me

immigrAtion

9 Years Later Bena Father’s Footsteps Hungry Hearts Long Distance Perin’s Dual Identity A Room and a Half You Can Dance iSrAeliS And ArAbS

9 Years Later Amos Oz: The Nature of Dreams Arab Labor: Season 2 Budrus Broken Time Dor Lost Paradise My So Called Enemy Sayed Kashua - Forever Scared What About Me?

gAngSterS And Crime diSAbilit y

motherS And SonS

lAtin AmeriCA

Anita Ilusiones Ópticas Te Extraño (I Miss You) literAtUre And Writing

SoCiAl JUStiCe & hUmAn rightS

Amos Oz: The Nature of Dreams Army of Crime Budrus Grace Paley: Collected Shorts My So Called Enemy Saviors in the Night Sayed Kashua – Forever Scared A Small Act Utopia in Four Movements War Against the Weak Women

9 Years Later Ahead of Time Grace Paley: Collected Shorts Hungry Hearts Ingelore Mrs. Moscowitz and the Cats My So Called Enemy Perfect Mother Perin’s Dual Identity yiddiShkeit

Half-Remembered Stories Hungry Hearts The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground

Ahead of Time Amos Oz: The Nature of Dreams Grace Paley: Collected Shorts A Room and a Half Sayed Kashua – Forever Scared

Why settle for just one? See any 10 movies of your choice. 10% off with a 10-Flix Voucher Pack.

Become a member of the Jewish Film Forum for ticket discounts and special benefits.

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Photo courtesy of Lionsgate Films

FREE OUTDOOR SCREENING

dIRTy dAnCING Pre-Festival Kickoff Party! In partnership with Film Night in the Park Saturday, July 10, Union Square, San Francisco SFJFF is proud to partner with Film Night in the Park again this year to bring the Catskills to the Square. Join us in downtown San Francisco’s Union Square for the beloved 1980s classic Dirty Dancing, featuring the legendary Patrick Swayze as bad boy dance instructor Johnny, and Jennifer Grey (pre nose-job) as Baby, a sheltered, nice-Jewish-girl next-door with a passion for more than just the cha-cha-cha. Set in 1960 at the fictional middle class “Kellerman’s” summer resort in the famous New York Catskills, this American classic may dance around the word ‘Jewish,’ but we all know it’s there. Bring a blanket, a friend or two, and remember to pack a sweater or you’ll catch a chill. Because nobody puts your baby in a corner, bring your good luck charms for a chance to win a deluxe date night package for you and your partner. HAVE THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE Saturday, July 10 In Union Square San Francisco Film screens at dusk (approximately 8:30pm) Free Admission

ABOUT FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK Film Night in the Park, presented by the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation, is San Francisco’s premier outdoor film series. Films are presented in Dolores Park, Washington Square Park and Union Square on a giant outdoor screen. See www.filmnight.org for full schedule.

Art Direction & Design MendeDesign, www.mendedesign.com

Opening Night

saviors in the Night Germany, France, 2009, 100 min., color, German w/Eng. subtitles Director: Ludi Boeken Screenwriters: Heidrun Schleef, Imo Moskowicz, Otto Jagersberg Cinematographer: Dani Schneor

Editor: Suzanne Fenn Principal Cast: Armin Rohde, Margarita Broich, Veronica Ferres, Lia Hoensbroech

Opening Night After-Film Bash

Celebrate the launch of the 30th Anniversary SFJFF with fabulous food, flowing drinks, fun tunes from gypsy jazz sextet Gaucho, and the best schmoozing in town at our Opening Night Bash, this year taking place after the Opening Night Film. Also new this year, enjoy desserts, DJs, a festive photo booth with our pals at Yelp.com, and much more in this year’s exciting addition, THE BACKROOM. For more info, including event parking details, see page 32.

opening night is generously sponsored by Lela & Gerry Sarnat. film Sponsored by Deborah Blank in loving memory of her father, Jerome Blank, thanking him for the gifts of his “Yiddishkeit,” his caring support, enduring optimism, and his love of movies. Returning from Germany’s eastern front in 1918, Menne Spiegel is decorated with the Iron Cross. Twenty-five years later, living as a popular horse merchant in Westphalia, he’s branded with a different insignia: the Star of David. On the eve of a mass deportation of Jews, Spiegel seeks out his old comrade Heinrich Aschoff, a Catholic farmer with a conscience, who instantly agrees to shelter Spiegel’s wife Marga and daughter Karin at his farm despite the risk to his own family. Based on the real Marga Spiegel’s best-selling memoir, Saviors in the Night relates the extraordinary story of the two families’ perilous years together with a forthrightness befitting the salt-of-the-earth Aschoff family (later recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial for their death-defying act of compassion). Dutch director Ludi Boeken captures the characters’ vulnerability as they endeavor to escape detection—rarely has a handheld camera felt more appropriate in a historical drama where a child’s thoughtless remark might mean a death sentence. The Aschoffs’ rural village isn’t as malignant as the one in Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, but the good deeds of the few are undermined by neighbors’ whispers and resentment. Moreover, family bonds are tested, as the Aschoffs must justify their act of courage to a daughter whose friends have joined the Hitler Youth and a son who is fighting on the front. With outstanding performances and a riveting conclusion, Saviors in the Night delivers a powerful message about the price— and rewards—of altruism. This is an extraordinary feature film that powerfully records one memorable instance of moral courage under desperate conditions. —Max Goldberg Join us for Opening Night in San Francisco with special invited guests Marga Spiegel (on whose real life experiences the film is based), director Ludi Boeken and principal actor Lia Hoensbroech.

Cas tro (film only) Cas tro (film + Bash) Cine Ar t s Roda Rafael

Sat, Jul 24 Sat, Jul 24 Sat, Jul 31 Sat, Aug 7 Mon, Aug 9

7:00 pm 7:00 pm, Bash @ 9:30 pm 6:45 pm 7:00 pm 6:15 pm

$30/$25 members $75/$65 members $12/$10 members $12/$10 members $12/$10 members

Castro Closing Night / Berkeley Opening Night

the Klezmatics: on Holy ground Northern California Premiere United States, 2010, 105 min., color, English, Yiddish w/Eng. subtitles Director: Erik Greenberg Anjou Cinematographer: Wayne De la Roche Editor: Lisa Palattella

Join members of the band and director Erik Greenberg Anjou for a rousing Closing Night at the Castro Theatre including goodie bags and the Mighty Wurlitzer; Berkeley Opening Night features a delicious post-film reception in the Roda courtyard. See page 32 for details.

Closing Night is sponsored by a generous grant from the Bonnie and Marty Tenenbaum Foundation Defying categorization, the geniuses of world music-klezmer fusion known as The Klezmatics have been breaking ground by continually redefining Jewish music for more than 20 years. And though not every band deserves its own movie, the New York–based Klezmatics are a perfect match for the medium. Their restless energy, infectious concert performances and on-camera candor make for a rousing behind-the-scenes documentary covering four up-and-down years in the life of the band. Early scenes with lead vocalist Lorin Sklamberg, a sound archivist by day, poignantly establish the importance of the disappearing Yiddish language as a cultural touchstone both for klezmer music and for contemporary Jewish identity. But the music-making in the documentary soon takes center stage, and it is a revelation. In concert footage ranging from Milwaukee to Berlin to Israel, the band (whose members have sometimes changed over the years but whose essence has not) plumbs the depths of Yiddish song, pays tribute to Woody Guthrie’s Jewish oeuvre (yes, you read that right) and collaborates with all-star guests like Joshua Nelson and Chava Alberstein. Director Erik Greenberg Anjou (A Cantor’s Tale, SFJFF 2005) also reveals the personal dramas underneath the music, as the band members struggle to maintain lives as independent American artists while raising families (traditional and non-traditional), facing middle age, battling with their manager and negotiating the prickly interpersonal dynamics of the ensemble in scenes that play out like couples therapy for an old married, uh, sextet. There’s even an emotional roots journey to Eastern Europe and the pursuit of a first-ever Grammy for klezmer music. The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground combines the best elements of a backstage doc, a concert film and an eye-opening lesson in remixing Jewish culture. —Peter L. Stein

Preceded by

seltzer Works United States, 2010, 7 min.,color, English

Director: Jessica Edwards

The siphon machines at Gomberg Seltzer Works don’t turn like they used to. Nevertheless, the last bottler in Brooklyn fends off the supermarket-seltzer takeover and honors this cherished drink’s place in history. —Joshua Moore Cas tro (includes extras) Roda (reception follows)

Thu, Jul 29 Sat, Jul 31

8:45 pm 7:00 pm

$25/22 members $25/22 members

Centerpiece Film

anita Northern California Premiere Argentina, 2009, 104 min., color, Spanish, w/Eng. subtitles. Director: Marcos Carnevale Screenwriters: Lily Martin, Marcela Guety, Marcos Carnevale Cinematographer: Guillermo Zappino

Editor: Pablo Barbieri Carrera Principal Cast: Alejandra Manzo, Leonor Manso, Norma Aleandro

Sponsored by Vera & Harold S. Stein, Jr. Ana Feldman, nicknamed Anita, is a young Jewish Argentine woman with Down syndrome living with her devoted mother, Dora (famed Argentinian actor Norma Aleandro), in modest comfort above the shop Dora’s late husband started in a commercial district of Buenos Aires. Beloved older brother Ariel is making his own way in business, his young wife by his side. Into this intimate, sweetly sedate domestic world—where for Anita the biggest imaginable disaster is a delayed trip to the zoo with Ariel—the world outside intrudes with unexpected fury. When Dora does not show up at a prearranged time, Anita gets lost in the city while searching for her, receiving help and companionship in unexpected quarters through the simple force of her ingenuous personality and open heart. On her meanderings, she learns not only to care for herself, but touches the lives of those around her, from an alcoholic man to a family of Asian immigrants. Writer-director Marcos Carnevale draws us in masterfully from the outset with his admirably controlled, mature cinematic style and the superb performances he gets from an expert cast—though first among them is the novice, and completely captivating, Alejandra Manzo in the title role. Wrenching, lovely, suffused with life, Anita is a profoundly hopeful study of human innocence, compassion and resilience in a fragile, troubled world. —Robert Avila

Lead actor Alejandra Manzo in person at the Castro.

Cas tro Cine Ar t s Roda

Tue, Jul 27 Sun, Aug 1 Tue, Aug 3

6:30 pm 6:30 pm 6:30 pm

Special Program

TOugH guyS: images of jewish gangsters in film Gangster films are an intriguing prism through which to view one of the darker aspects of American Jewish history: Jewish gangsters and Jewish crime. Scratch the bark on your family tree and you might uncover a Jewish gangster or someone who paid off a Jewish gangster. You might have an easier time finding a Jewish gangster story in your family, however, than an explicitly Jewish gangster film. A complex question for cinema historians is the extent to which Hollywood’s mostly Jewish producers and studio owners avoided making films about Jewish gangsters for fear of creating negative images of Jews during a time of widespread anti-Semitism. Tough Guys: Images of Jewish Gangsters in Film is a series of four films and a panel in this summer’s Festival, continuing with more films at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in the Fall (see page 39). The program includes cinematic images of Jewish gangsters, as well as “ethnic” gangsters played by Jewish actors. Scarface (1932), starring Paul Muni as a thinly disguised Al Capone, is an excellent example of a gangster movie that would have had a Jewish subtext for the Jewish audience of its day because of Paul Muni’s career in the Yiddish Theatre. Gangsterism is often a prevalent phenomenon in immigrant communities precisely because it offers a way out of poverty. A large percentage of American bootleggers (some estimates are as high as 50 percent) during the Prohibition era were Jews. Many of the Jewish gangsters, from the turn of the last century through World War II, were simultaneously hated and admired for their grit and chutzpah. The second wave of Jewish gangsters, in the late 1940s and ’50s, added brains to their brawn and created an almost corporate business model for their criminal activity. Some of their stories are not pretty, but there are also tales of Jewish mobsters doing good; rumors swirl around anti-Nazi and anti-bund activities, aid to the United States Navy in the invasion of Sicily and early support for Israel. Our sidebar and panel discussion will look at the unique place that Jewish gangsters had in their communities and in cinema—both as icons of strength and power and as a source of embarrassment to the Jewish community. Questions we hope to address include: How did portrayals of Jewish gangsters in film (or iconic Jewish actors in

non-Jewish gangster roles) play in the Jewish community and outside of it? How does the Jewish gangster experience parallel that of the Italian American gangster experience and its representation in cinema? What role does the Jewish gangster play in the spectrum of Jewish masculinity? And why weren’t more Jewish gangster films made? The four films screening in the festival include Bugsy (1991), Barry Levinson’s dramatic and romantic rendering of the rise and fall of Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, featuring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening; King of the Roaring 20’s – The Story of Arnold Rothstein (1961), Joseph M. Newman’s tale of Rothstein’s gambling exploits, featuring David Janssen as Rothstein and Mickey Rooney as his partner in crime; Lepke (1975), Menahem Golan’s sweeping saga about Brooklyn-born Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, starring Tony Curtis; and Scarface (1932), Howard Hawks’ classic film about a Chicago gangster, starring Paul Muni. Are Jewish gangsters or Jewish gangster films “good for the Jews"? I don’t have the answer to that question, but I do know that these films are exhilarating and endlessly entertaining, while providing a unique window into the Jewish immigrant experience. —Nancy K. Fishman, Guest Curator

Special support provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

panel discussion

There will be a panel discussion about Tough Guys: Images of Jewish Gangsters in Film after the screening of Lepke at the Castro Theatre on Sunday, July 25, at 4:00 pm. Panelists will include Ron Arons, author of The Jews of Sing Sing; Professor Patricia Brett Erens, author of The Jew in American Cinema; Professor Albert Fried, author of The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America; and moderator Nancy K. Fishman. This fall, please join us at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on the first four Sunday afternoons in October for four more films in this series (see page 39) . 7

Special Live Musical Event

HUNGrY hEARTS United States, 1922, 80 min., black & white, Silent, w/Eng. intertitles Director: E. Mason Hopper Screenwriter: Julien Josephson Cinematographer: Robert Newhard

Editor: Robert Kern Principal Cast: Bryant Washburn, E. Alyn Warren, Helen Ferguson

Support for this special program generously provided by Columbia Foundation. Restored print courtesy of the National Center for Jewish Film.

This don’t-miss event combines a classic Lower East Side silent melodrama with a brand new commissioned score performed live on stage at the Castro Theatre by the Moab Strangers. Composer Ethan Miller (of Howlin Rain fame and Comets On Fire) leads talented and innovative Bay Area psychedelic and folk heroes—including Matt Baldwin, Utrillo Kushner (Comets On Fire, Colossal Yes), Joel Robinow (Howlin Rain, Drunk Horse) and even a female Gamelan band—in a cutting-edge soundtrack to the 1922 restored silent Hungry Hearts. The film is a Hollywood adaptation taken from the short stories of Anzia Yezierska, a writer whose rags-to-riches tales of immigrant hardship led to her being known as the Sweatshop Cinderella. The film opens with scholarly father Abraham Levin teaching Talmud classes secretly from his home in czarist Russia. Discovered by roaming Cossacks and threatened with prison, Abraham, his devoted wife, Hannah, and wide-eyed daughter Sara set out for America. Misinformed that the New World is a golden land with never-ending fields of sunshine, the Levins soon find themselves in the urban jungle of a New York tenement slum. Abraham, thoroughly uninterested in financial gain, has his pushcart stolen while his head is buried in a book. The radiant Sara is forced to eke out a living scrubbing the stairs of their apartment building. When Sara falls in love with a promising young lawyer, his irate landlord-uncle attempts to break the engagement by doubling the rent of the struggling Levins. What follows next is a thoroughly jaw-dropping sequence as the near hysterical Levin matriarch, Hannah, takes a meat cleaver to the white walls of her freshly painted apartment. Produced by Samuel Goldwyn and shot on location in New York’s Lower East Side, Hungry Hearts is a vividly drawn portrait of a Jewish family, at once tragic and richly comic, colored by a palpable sense of real life. —Thomas Logoreci Introduced by film preservationist Sharon Pucker Rivo. This program has been selected for participation in the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s Guardian Arts Series. Enter to win free tickets at www.sfbg.com.

Cas tro

Mon, Jul 26

7:00 pm

$15/$12 members

2010 SFJFF Freedom of Expression Award

saYEd kasHuA Israel’s Leading Satirist

If we were to commission Sayed Kashua himself to write this highly deserved tribute, the prose would be originally composed in the most up-to-date impeccable Hebrew. On the surface, it would be dismissive of the recipient and skeptical about the award itself. At first glance, the essay would seem to have been written off-handedly, to be mainstream and perhaps even superficial. Yet once the breathtaking final punch line landed, readers would feel obliged to reread the entire piece. They would then notice its opulence of subtleties, its poignant and pungent critical messages, ones that make the average Jewish-Israeli reader passionately embrace this Arab-Israeli author and, at the same time, feel extremely embarrassed about the often problematic reality of everyday life for the Arab-Israeli minority that Sayed Kashua’s mirror boldly reflects. Kashua’s satire manages, miraculously, both to skewer everyone and somehow bring Arabs and Jews together in wincing, barrier-breaking laughter. He was born in 1975 in the Arab town (currently city) of Tira, in the heartland of Israel’s Arab population. His grandfather was killed in the 1948 war and his father became an extreme left-wing activist who spent long periods under administrative detention. This radical Arab background to Kashua’s childhood soon fused with the utmost middle-of-the-road Hebrew culture after he enrolled at a prestigious boarding school for gifted children in Jerusalem. In the past decade Kashua has published extensively, complementing his satirical columns in Israeli weeklies as well as Ha’aretz with his two critically acclaimed and incredibly popular novels, Dancing Arabs (2002) and Let It Be Morning (2004). In 2007, the Israeli sitcom he wrote, Arab Labor, premiered on Israel’s Channel 2 TV, and its second season debuts this year (see page 12). A documentary profile, Sayed Kashua – Forever Scared (see page 24), was completed in 2009. He is currently working on a new novel, Second Person, having won the Israeli Prime Minister’s Prize for Hebrew authors in 2005. Atypically, Kashua, who lives with his family in Jerusalem, chooses to do all his writing in Hebrew rather than his native Arabic. His explanation is complex: Not only does he consider literary Arabic too formal and distant for his colloquial style, but the Arab readership is not entirely open to his harsh (however subtle on the surface) social criticism. His utterly unorthodox choices have thus put Kashua under fire from every direction in Israel. He is often accused of being a self-hating Palestinian as well as an ungrateful Israeli citizen. Kashua is the perpetual exile by choice, the rightful heir to Ephraim Kishon (Israel’s leading satirist of the 1950s–70s) and a living example that true empathy starts when we can laugh at ourselves. —Donny Inbar

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival’s Freedom of Expression Award honors the unfettered imagination, which is the cornerstone of a free, just and open society. Sayed Kashua will accept his award following the San Francisco screening of Arab Labor on July 28.

Donny Inbar, Ph.D., is the Associate Director for Arts and Culture at the Israel Center of the Jewish Community Federation and formerly served as Cultural Attaché for San Francisco’s Consulate General of Israel.

SFJFF’s Freedom of Expression Award statuette is the creation of San Francisco–based, Moscow-born sculptor Misha Frid, whose design symbolizes “the never extinguished flame of Jewish daring and creativity.”

Live Documentary Performance

UTopIA IN FouR mOVEmenTs United States, 2010, 75 min., color, English

Directors/Editors: Sam Green, Dave Cerf

Cinematographer: Andy Black

Utopia in Four Movements is an epic multimedia performance piece by documentary filmmaker and Academy Award nominee Sam Green (The Weather Underground) and aural mix-master Dave Cerf. Originally conceived as a work-in-progress for a still uncompleted film, Utopia has evolved instead into a one-of-a-kind stage show that threads together a century’s worth of dizzying sounds and images into a deeply moving meditation on our world’s seemingly shrinking idealism. Green, microphone in hand, prowls the stage, commenting on a collage of clips and still images that capture the hopes and dashed dreams of the last hundred years, moving deftly from an examination of the Esperanto movement (created by Jewish ophthalmologist Ludovic Zamenhof) to the world’s largest (and largely empty) shopping mall—in communist China. A singular, poetic essay that stretches the very norms of the nonfiction genre, Utopia is by turns comic and wistful, and always thoughtprovoking. Since its acclaimed Sundance premiere earlier this year, Green and Cerf have been continually reinventing the Utopia spectacle for audiences all over North America, meaning that no two shows are exactly alike. SFJFF’s Berkeley performance promises many surprises. Utopia is an elegy for the ideals of the past with a hopeful eye on the future. —Thomas Logoreci

Directors Dave Cerf and Sam Green in person.

Roda

Sat, Jul 31

4:30 pm

Spotlight On

PEOPLe of ThE booK Writers take center stage in a sidebar of films exploring Jewish and Israeli literary lives.

Filmmakers take on a formidable challenge when they attempt to bring writers to life on the screen. After all, the writer’s craft is essentially non-visual, a writer’s work habits solitary and his or her art intended for audiences as an interior experience. So it is a special delight to showcase this year’s trove of films that not only do justice to the lives and the artistry of the writers they profile, but also enhance our appreciation of the filmmaker’s craft: Ahead of Time chronicles the extraordinary life of groundbreaking journalist Ruth Gruber (page 11). Amos Oz: The Nature of Dreams pays homage to Israel’s most widely celebrated novelist and intellectual (page 12). Grace Paley: Collected Shorts brings to life Paley’s passions, activism and fierce poetry in her own voice and the recollections of friends (page 16). A Room and a Half is a lyrical, quasi-fictional summoning of the spirit of Russian poet and Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky (page 23). Sayed Kashua – Forever Scared follows the irreverent Israeli satirist’s rapid and surprising rise to prominence (page 24).

Readers alert! Independent bookseller Books, Inc. is offering SFJFF ticketholders discounts on selected titles of our featured authors. See page 33 for details.

9 years Later Israel, 2009, 70 min., color, Hebrew, Moroccan Arabic w/Eng. subtitles

AHeaD OF TIme

Directors: Sari Ezouz, Yifat Kedar Cinematographer: Gonen Glaser Editor: Sari Ezouz

Raised as a Muslim in Morocco, Danielle is now Jewish, a single mother and a housecleaner living in Israel. At the beginning of this heartfelt documentary, Danielle decides to return to Morocco to gain custody of the 14-year-old son she left behind nine years earlier, when she moved to Israel to break away from her abusive third marriage. The film traces her emotional journey as she confronts the frustrating bureaucratic obstacles posed by the Rabbinical Court and other Israeli institutions. The filmmakers skillfully unveil the fascinating details of Danielle’s family history and draw attention to the differences between life in modern-day Israel and Morocco, while suggesting the way poverty keeps individuals trapped in similar circumstances regardless of location. 9 Years Later explores themes of class, cultural and religious identity and the bonds between women, but is ultimately a tribute to motherhood and the sacrifices women make on behalf of their children. Best Editing Award, DocAviv 2009. —Hagar Scher Preceded by

Perin’s Dual Identity Israel, 2009, 12 min., color, Arabic, Hebrew w/Eng. subtitles

Bay Area Premiere United States, 2009, 73 min., color and black & white, English, Hebrew, w/Eng. subtitles

Director/Cinematographer: Bob Richman Editor: Sabine Krayenbuehl

Co-sponsored by the Reva and David Logan Foundation Ruth Gruber, 97, was an ace journalist, photographer and author for more than 70 years. Hurtling herself out of Brooklyn and into global politics, she witnessed some of the most critical junctures in contemporary world history and specifically Jewish history. After studying in Cologne, Germany, she became at age 20 the world’s youngest PhD. and was drawn to journalism, undaunted by the dominance of men in the news industry. Gruber cultivated an enormous capacity for empathy that permeated all of her interviews. Her news coverage drew the eyes of the world to the Nuremberg trials, the plight of the ship Exodus ’47, United Nations committee meetings in Palestine and the formation of the state of Israel. She not only reported on history, she also participated in it: In 1944, the Roosevelt administration recruited Gruber to escort 1,000 Holocaust refugees from Naples to New York in a secret wartime mission. Gruber and her story are enthralling and insightful in this exquisitely crafted documentary, brimming with iconic archival footage. Screened at Toronto International Film Festival 2009. —Nancy K. Fishman Director Bob Richman in person at the Castro.

Director: Perin Nahara

Meet Perin and Polin, identical twin teenage girls from Lebanon, now living in Israel, torn between two cultures and two identities. From the series, Through My Eyes: Stories by Galilee Youths.—Joshua Moore

Roda JC C SF

Tue, Aug 3 Sat, Aug 7

2:30 PM 12:00 PM

Cas tro Cine Ar t s (free matinee) Roda

Tue, Jul 27 Mon, Aug 2 Sat, Aug 7

11:30 AM 2:00 PM 12:00 PM

Amos oz: The nature of Dreams United States Premiere

Directors: Masha Zur Glozman, Yonathan Zur Cinematographer: Ron Bavarsky Editor: Yonathan Zur

International Premiere Israel, 2010, 3 x 24 min., color, Arabic, Hebrew w/Eng. subtitles

Director: Shai Capon Screenwriter: Sayed Kashua Principal cast: Norman Issa, Clara Khoury, Mariano Idelman

Sponsored by Denis Bouvier

World Premiere United States, 2010, 75 min., color and black & white, English

Director: Lilly Rivlin Cinematographer: Danae Elon Editor: Laura D’Antoni

Sponsored by Hannah KranzberG A ‘sheinem danke’ to amazing Grace. May her life be both exemplar and touchstone for generations to come; may her vision and spirit live on... Lilly Rivlin’s intimate documentary is a rich, inspiring portrait of Jewish writer and activist Grace Paley, who passed away in 2007. Paley’s acclaimed first short story collection, The Little Disturbances of Man, established her reputation with its brilliantly sad and funny chronicles of Jewish American urban females much like herself. Paley’s New York tales, filled with an emotional and sexual frankness especially bold at the tail end of the frightened 1950s, soon became classics of the short fiction form. Not content to rest on her laurels, however, Paley combined her evolving literary career with passionate pursuit of her political concerns through the 1960s, 70s and 80s. “Art is too long and life is too short,” wrote the outspoken Paley, “There’s a lot more to do in life than writing.” Indeed, she spent the rest of her life on the front lines of the anti-war and women’s movements, where she endured being arrested time and again. Rivlin’s film confidently juggles all aspects of Paley’s extraordinary story, told in candid recollections and passionate readings by Paley herself, along with fond remembrances by literary critics, family and writer-friends Allan Gurganas and Alice Walker. Throughout, Grace Paley: Collected Shorts casts an important and penetrating light on a brilliant and highly principled woman who constantly reinvented both her life and art. —Thomas Logoreci Director Lilly Rivlin in person.

Cas tro Cine Ar t s Roda Rafael

Thu, Jul 29 Sat, Jul 31 Sun, Aug 1 Sat, Aug 7

6:00 PM 4:15 PM 4:15 PM 4:45 PM

Cas tro Roda

Sun, Jul 25 Sun, Aug 1

11:00 AM 12:00 PM

Ilusiones Ópticas

gRUBEr’s JOurNeY Romania, 2008, 100 min., color, German, Italian, Romanian w/Eng. subtitles Director: Radu Gabrea

Screenwriters: Alexandru Baciu, Razvan Radulescu Cinematographer: Dinu Tanase Editor: Melania Oproiu Principal Cast: Florin Piersic Jr., Marcel Iures, Udo Schenk

Sponsored by Frederick Hertz It is June 1941 and Curzio Malaparte, an Italian war correspondent, is en route through Romania to cover the Russian front for the Italian news service. Suffering from severe allergies, he gets referred to a certain Jewish doctor, Josef Gruber, in the German-occupied city of Iaşi. The only problem is that Gruber is nowhere to be found. All attempts to locate him are met with Kafka-esque bureaucracy and outrageous, almost comic, ineptitude. In Malaparte’s increasingly anxious search for Gruber, director Radu Gabrea displays a considerable gift for subtlety and nuance, as we watch his protagonist put together the pieces and gradually uncover the truth of the brutality of the Romanian authorities towards the country’s Jewish population. Based on a true story, the brilliant Gruber’s Journey dramatizes deceptively trivial events to reveal their monstrous backdrop: Over 12,000 Jews suffered one of the most violent and savage pogroms in Jewish history in Iaşi. No prodding from Nazi Germany was needed for the slaughter to reach barbaric proportions. Director Gabrea’s approach to this history is no less effective for being coolly understated. This is an extraordinarily intelligent film of epic proportions, where the horror resides in what is not seen.

Northern California Premiere Chile, France, Portugal, 2009, 105 min., color, Spanish w/Eng. subtitles Director:Cristián Jiménez Screenwriters: Alicia Scherson, Cristián Jiménez

Cinematographer: Inti Briones Editor: Galut Alarcón Principal Cast: Eduardo Paxeco, Gregory Cohen, Iván Álvarez de Araya

It’s a hazy and baffling new world for Juan following an operation that grants him partial sight after a lifetime of blindness. As he peers closely at the blurry shapes and colors around him, he begins to see the world for what it truly is—and perhaps life was better when he was blind. In Ilusiones Ópticas, award-winning director Cristián Jiménez delivers a melancholy and satirical comedy that pokes fun at our obsession with appearances, taking a hard look, so to speak, at the way we perceive the world. As Juan stumbles through his new life of vision, Rafa, a security guard at the shiny new mall, becomes obsessed with a wealthy divorcée and shoplifter who pulls him into her bizarre life of household chores and clandestine encounters. His sister Manuela, meanwhile, wonders if she’d have better luck with men if she got breast implants. She inadvertently becomes the object of affection for David, an agnostic Jew whose teenage son toys with self-circumcision while striving to pull his father back toward his Judaic roots. Reality becomes tangled up in perception as winter closes in on this quirky circle of ordinary people, leaving us to wonder if perhaps the world we think we know is no more than an optical illusion. —Rachel Aloy

—Jay Rosenblatt

Preceded by

Director Radu Gabrea in person at the Castro.

What About me? Israel, 2008, 4 min., Color, Hebrew w/Eng. subtitles

Directors: Etgar Keret, Shira Gefen

Absurdity ensues as a man with a banana-laden donkey attempts to cross a checkpoint in the middle of the Israeli desert, in this bitingly funny new short by Etgar Keret and Shira Gefen (Jellyfish). —Joshua Moore

Cas tro Roda

Sun, Jul 25 Sun, Aug 1

7:30 PM 9:15PM

Cas tro Roda Rafael

Sat, Jul 24 Tue, Aug 3 Sat, Aug 7

4:00 PM 8:45 PM 8:45 PM

Ingelore United States, 2009, 40 min., color and black & white English, German, Sign Language w/Eng. subtitles

Jaffa Director: Frank Stiefel Cinematography: Brett Froomer Editor: Ting Poo Principal Cast: Delaney Miner, Don Franzen, Hanna Schwamborn

Sponsored by the Laszlo N. Tauber Family Foundation. Free matinees are generously supported by the Bernard Osher Jewish Philanthropies Foundation

ww w.sfjff.org

Frank Stiefel’s portrait of his mother is both a loving tribute and a remarkable feat of compressed storytelling. As a deaf Jew in 1930s Germany, Ingelore Herz Honigstein was an outcast twice over. She narrates the harrowing events leading up to her immigration to America in speech and sign, revisiting past experiences with a startling degree of emotional clarity. Whether recounting small facts of life or pivotal moments like seeing New York for the first time, Ingelore’s expressivity is mesmerizing. Stiefel’s integration of archival footage and recreations, meanwhile, provides a potent visual context for his mother’s testimony. —Max Goldberg Director Frank Stiefel and Ingelore Herz Honigstein in person at the Castro. Q & A will include sign language interpretation for the hearing impaired. Followed by

Surviving Hitler: A Love story West Coast Premiere

866.558.4253

United States, 2010, 65 min., color and black & white, English, German w/Eng. subtitles

Director: John-Keith Wasson Cinematographer: Charlie Wupperman Editor: Carla Guiterrez

California Premiere Israel, France, Germany, 2009, 104 min., color, Hebrew w/Eng. subtitles

Director/Screenwriter: Keren Yedaya Cinematographer: Pierre Aim Editor: Avi Korman Principal Cast: Ronit Elkabetz, Dana Ivgy, Moni Moshonov

Co-sponsored by Carl & Gay Grunfeld Located off one of Jaffa’s narrow, dusty streets, Reuven’s Garage is a family affair. Reuven (beloved Israeli actor Moni Moshonov) hopes to leave the business to his eldest child, Meir, but is beginning to acknowledge that his venomous, volatile son is not to be trusted. Meanwhile, Reuven’s dutiful daughter, Mali, the garage’s receptionist, is deceiving her family by engaging in a love affair with Toufik, the Palestinian auto mechanic who works for Reuven alongside his father. An explosive argument between Meir and his myopic mother, Ossi (the magnificent Ronit Elkabetz), sets off a chain of events that shatters the lives of all. Director and co-writer Keren Yedaya—whose previous film, Or, screened at SFJFF in 2005—has created an accessible drama that refuses to flinch at the political and interpersonal landmines that her characters must navigate. Jaffa, an official selection at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, is a gut-wrenching allegory in which a family consumed by fear, lies, denial and rage reflects a larger truth about the corrosive nature of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The film showcases a raw, understated performance by Dana Ivgy (star of Or) as Mali. Mali’s choices suggest healing is possible, as does Yedaya’s choice to set the action in Jaffa, the crumbling but still beautiful port city where Israeli Jews and Arabs live side-by-side. —Hagar Scher Preceded by

the Orange California Premiere

As a teenager in Nazi Germany, Jutta is shocked to discover she is Jewish. She joins the German resistance and meets Helmuth, an injured soldier. The two become sweethearts and soon co-conspirators in the plot to assassinate Hitler. This would sound like a pitch for a Hollywood blockbuster were it not all true. Surviving Hitler: A Love Story is in fact a harrowing tale of war, resistance and survival. At the center of the documentary is a love story for the ages, with riveting narration by Jutta herself, original 8mm footage (shot by Helmuth) and, miraculously, a happy ending. Winner of the Inspiration Award at the 2010 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. —Jay Rosenblatt

Director: Nick Fox-Gieg

Canada, United States, 2009, 3 min., color, English

A humble citrus fruit is suddenly granted absolute power over the universe. From a story by Benjamin Rosenbaum, with animation by Nick Fox-Gieg (The Foxhole Manifesto, SFJFF 2009). —Joshua Moore

The Castro screening of both films will contain English subtitles for the hearing impaired.

Cas tro (free matinee) Roda (free matinee)

Wed, July 28 Wed, Aug 4

1:15 PM 2:15 PM

Cine Ar t s Roda JC C SF Rafael

Tue, Aug 3 Thu, Aug 5 Sat, Aug 7 Sun, Aug 8

8:00 PM 8:30 PM 6:30 PM 4:15 PM

JewS aND BaSEbAll:

JEws In shORTs:

AN AMErICAN LOVe SToRY West Coast Premiere United States, 2010, 91 min., color and black & white, English

fOCUS on ISRAELI NARraTIVEs

Director: Peter Miller Producer: Will Hechter Cinematographer: Antonio Rossi Editor: Amy Linton

Co-sponsored by George Krevsky Gallery Not particularly known in the United States for their athletic prowess, Jews have surprisingly excelled in the most American of sports: baseball. Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story, gamely narrated by Dustin Hoffman, celebrates the contributions of Jewish major leaguers and the special meaning that baseball has had in the lives of American Jews. Whether you are from the Hank Greenberg era, a Sandy Koufax fan or just following the current crop of Jewish ballplayers (like Kevin Youkilis), there is much to enjoy in this thoroughly entertaining film. The pride these players felt in their heritage and for their sport is contagious. More than a film about sports, it is a story of immigration, assimilation, bigotry and the shattering of stereotypes. An articulate and passionate group of interviewees includes former ballplayers Al Rosen and Sandy Koufax (consenting to a rare interview) as well as executives, writers and especially fans, including filmmaker Ron Howard and television personality Larry King. Take yourself out to the ballgame (and bring someone along): if you loved The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (SFJFF 1999), you’re going to love Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story. —Jay Rosenblatt

Sometimes what lies beneath the surface has more impact than what is right in front of our noses. This year’s collection of subtly exquisite shorts (all from Israel) focuses on the nuances of human character in all its complexities, whether arising from a soldier’s remorse, an undefined love affair suddenly defined, a friendship verging on desire or a child’s innocence lingering on the brink of adulthood. Total running time: 86 mins. —Joshua Moore LOST PAR ADISE Israel, 2008, 10 min., color, English Directors: Mihal Brezis, Oded Binnun

A man and a woman are tenderly making love in a one-star hotel room. A moment later, when they are fully dressed, the idyll that seemed authentic is now gone. TOM Israel, 2010, 24 min., color, Hebrew w/Eng. subtitles Director: Nimrod Shapira

An impossible love triangle, the relationships between Tom, Daniel and Michal are about to be tested when the three go on a weekend camping trip. Like a tower of cards, the surface is shaky and might collapse with the lightest breeze. BROKEN TIME Israel, 2009, 25 min., color, Hebrew w/Eng. subtitles Director: Ilan Amit

Daniel, a withdrawn 11-year-old boy, lives under his mother’s strict supervision. Every afternoon he waits alone for her to return from work at 3pm. One day, a strong explosion is heard throughout the city. As the hours pass and his mother fails to appear, Daniel’s repressed anxiety leads him to an action that will change his life.

Producer Will Hechter in person at the Castro.

DOR Israel, 2009, 27 min., color, Hebrew w/Eng. subtitles Director: Ofir Raul Graizer

A young soldier returns home for a weekend with friends and family after having committed an act of violence while on duty that will make him doubt the values and ideas on which he was raised.

Cas tro Cine Ar t s Roda Rafael

Sun, Jul 25 Sat, Jul 31 Sun, Aug 1 Sun, Aug 8

1:15 PM 2:00 PM 2:15 PM 2:00 PM

Roda

Mon, Aug 2

8:45 PM

United States, 1961, 106 min., black & white, English

ww w.sfjff.org

Director: Joseph M. Newman Screenwriters: Leo Katcher, Jo Swerling

KING OF THE ROArInG 20’S– THE STORY OF ArNoLD roThSTEIn

lEpke

Cinematographer: Carl E. Guthrie Editor: George White Principal Cast: David Janssen, Dianne Foster, Mickey Rooney, Joseph Schildkraut

Joseph M. Newman’s King of the Roaring 20’s – The Story of Arnold Rothstein is a tale of ambition and the corruption of a nice Jewish boy. David Janssen (The Green Berets, TV’s The Fugitive) is Arnold Rothstein, the incorrigible gambler and bookmaker who later inspired Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky. Rothstein is perhaps best known for allegedly paying members of the Chicago White Sox to “throw” the 1919 World Series. In this dramatic rendering, an Irish cop brings young Arnold home to his old-world father (Joseph Schildkraut), who turns to mother Esther and says, “This boy has a dybbuk in him.” Arnold hooks up with neighborhood kid Johnny Burke (Mickey Rooney) and together they embark on a life of crime. When press agent Harry Hecht (William Demarest) sets him up with the beautiful Carol Green (Diane Foster), he is smitten. Carol tries to resist his attention, but ultimately ignores the advice of her roommate Madge who quips, “When you’re married to a gambler, the only game you’ll win is solitaire.” Rothstein strategically navigates New York’s Democratic politicians, the police, the racetrack and the vicissitudes of love and luck. When he finally gets the royal flush he’s been waiting for his whole life, the stakes are higher than he could have imagined. —Nancy K. Fishman

Screening as part of Tough Guys: Images of Jewish Gangsters in Film

United States, Israel, 1975, 110 min., color, English Director: Menahem Golan

Screenwriters: Tamar Simon Hoffs, Wesley Lau Cinematographer: Andrew Davis Principal Cast: Tony Curtis, Anjanette Comer, Michael Callan, Warren Berlinger

Tony Curtis (Some Like it Hot, The Defiant Ones) is mesmerizing as Louis “Lepke” Buchalter in Menahem Golan’s epic drama about the feared leader of Murder, Incorporated. A Brooklyn Jewish kid with sticky fingers and ambition, young Lepke soon ends up in reform school. He quickly graduates to labor racketeering and murder, offing Little Augie, a major rival. Along the way, he falls in love with nice Jewish girl Bernice (Anjanette Comer), whose parents insist they marry in a shul. When his partners Albert Anastasia and Lucky Luciano show up uninvited to the wedding party, it is clear to everyone that Lepke is not in the pickle business. The film’s cast of characters reads like a who’s who of New York Jewish gangsters: Dutch Schultz, Gurrah Shapiro, Mendy Weiss, Kid “Twist” Reles and their nemesis, Thomas Dewey. Director Golan explores the cross-cultural Italian/Jewish syndicate, replete with dramatic shoot-ups in Italian restaurants and ethnic insults hurled back and forth. In one of the oddest twists in American crime history, journalist and radio personality Walter Winchell tries to broker a deal to bring in Lepke—then on the lam—on behalf of J. Edgar Hoover. Ultimately, Lepke provides a unique window into the Jewish immigrant experience in the trajectory of a man driven to achieve one version of the American dream. —Nancy K. Fishman Screening as part of Tough Guys: Images of Jewish Gangsters in Film –see page 7

–see page 7

866.558.4253

Print courtesy of Warner Bros. Followed by panel discussion on Tough Guys:

Images of Jewish Gangsters in Film (see page 7).

Panelists will include: Ron Arons, author of The Jews of Sing Sing; Professor Patricia Brett Erens, author of The Jew in American Cinema; Professor Albert Fried, author of The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America; and moderator Nancy K. Fishman.

Print courtesy of Warner Bros.

Cas tro

Mon, Jul 26

12:00PM

Cas tro

Sun, Jul 25

4:00 PM

Long Distance West Coast Premiere Israel, 2009, 62 min., color, English, Hebrew, Takalo, Turkish w/Eng. subtitles

Mrs. mosCowitz and the Cats

Director: Amikam Goldman Cinematographer: Daniel Kedem Editor: Yaara Lipkin-Poran Principal Cast: Gener Mariano, Kadir Erdem, Rosemarie dela Cruz

There are an estimated 300,000 foreign workers in Israel. Long Distance (the Hebrew title, sichat chutz, means “a foreign conversation, a talk outside”) tells the story of four of them: a Filipino man and woman, a Ghanaian woman and a Turkish man. Working variously as caretakers, a cleaning lady and a construction worker, the small details of their lives in Tel Aviv reveal themselves, in this moving and formally precise film, through phone calls back home. As attempts to maintain ties with loved ones left behind and not seen for years, these conversations become lifelines allowing the subjects to express their fears, anxieties and longings. Rosemarie dela Cruz, for instance, always uses the same words to end her conversations with her young son in the Philippines: “I love you. I miss you. God be with you always,” transmitting across the seas the expression of hope and affection in equal measure to her isolation and hardship. —Alon Raab Preceded by

You Can Dance Israel, 2008, 22 min., color, Hebrew w/Eng. subtitles

Bay Area Premiere Israel, 2009, 83 min., color, Hebrew w/Eng. subtitles

Director: Jorge Gurvich Cinematographer: Shai Goldman Editor: Yosef Grunfeld Principal Cast: Moni Moshonov, Rita Zohar, Shulamit Adar

The lone life of Yolanda Moscowitz, a widow and retired French teacher, consists of painfully climbing up and down multiple flights of stairs, watching French game shows on TV and, when she’s trying to sleep at night, silencing the fierce wailing of stray cats that crowd the backyard. When she injures herself and ends up in a geriatric ward, she shoos away hospital workers and fellow patients just like she did the cats. Here, however, Yolanda learns (or rather, relearns) how to co-exist with others. She befriends Alegra, with whom she shares her room, and Alegra’s caretaker Malka, who offers to stop by her apartment to pick up some of her belongings. She also begins to fall for a charming former soccer player, Shaul, who brings smiles to her face and colors into her world. Furthermore, it is in this ward that she is reminded of life’s fragility when she sees a dead person for the first time. Gurvich’s sweet, touching and award-winning film (Best Actress, Rita Zohar, 2009 Jerusalem International Film Festival) is a testament that our emotional lives continue to evolve, no matter what the age. “Don’t look at the age,” Yolanda knowingly tells her nurse, “look at the person.” —Nani Ratnawati

Directors: Maya Mcmanus, Shlomit Friedman

A charming portrait of four different professional musicians from the former Soviet Union who now perform their songs on the streets of Tel Aviv. —Joshua Moore

Roda Cine Ar t s

Mon, Aug 2 Tue, Aug 3

2:15 PM 4 :00 PM

Cas tro Cine Ar t s Roda Rafael

Wed, Jul 28 Tue, Aug 3 Thu, Aug 5 Sat, Aug 7

11:30 AM 2:00 PM 12:00 PM 2:45 PM

My SO CALlED ENemY

mY PEReSTROIKA West Coast Premiere

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United Kingdom, United States, 2010, 87 min., color, Russian w/Eng. subtitles

Director/Cinematographer: Robin Hessman Editor: Alla Kovgan

West Coast Premiere United States, 2010, 85 min., color, English

Westerners tend to imagine the massive changes in Russian life since the end of the Cold War as headlines and abstractions: Gorbachev and Putin, a new breed of capitalists and profiteers, a new wave of emigration by Russian Jews. But we have little access to the personal lives of ordinary Russians living through upheaval. In her marvelous and eye-opening documentary, director Robin Hessman—an American Jewish television producer who worked in Moscow for nearly a decade—weaves together the private hopes, disillusionments and realities of five everyday Russians who came of age as Soviet teenagers, witnessed the USSR’s collapse and now are forging lives in a brave new post-perestroika world. At the center is the Meyerson family—Borya, who grew up under a cloud of anti-Semitism; and his wife Lyuba, so patriotic a Soviet child that she saluted the television when the national anthem played. They now teach Russian history with a candor unthinkable in their own childhoods. The trajectories of their middle-class Moscow friends are equally surprising and complex: rebel musician Ruslan, struggling single mother Olga, and successful menswear merchant Andrei. Hessman intercuts her intimate portraits with period news footage and rare Soviet-era home movies to give us a remarkably personal glimpse inside one of the great social and political transformations of our time. Premiered at 2010 Sundance Film Festival. —Peter L. Stein

866.558.4253

Director Robin Hessman in person in Berkeley and San Francisco.

Director/Editor: Lisa Gossels Cinematographer: Justin Schein

Co-sponsored by the David R. Stern Fund of the Common Counsel Foundation In July 2002, 22 Israeli and Palestinian teenage girls spent 10 days in the United States attending a women’s leadership program called “Building Bridges for Peace.” They were Jewish, Christian and Muslim; many had lost friends and family members to escalating violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This would be the first time they would spend extended hours listening to, arguing with, let alone befriending, young women from the “enemy” side. The experience would complicate their lives and change some of them forever. My So Called Enemy is that rare film about Arab-Israeli coexistence that goes far beyond documenting a one-time encounter at a peace camp; rather, it follows six of its compelling subjects for seven years to reveal the way the young women’s attitudes and relationships are tested as they mature and as the conflict deepens. For Jewish Israeli Gal and Christian Palestinian Rezan, the realities of the occupation and Gal’s looming military service make the survival of their friendship an open question. Meanwhile, Arab Israeli Hanin moves from secular to devout Islam, Jewish Adi enters the army and Muslim Rawan engages her feminism navigating both Palestinian and Israeli societies. These complex, articulate young women not only change one another’s views about what it takes to live side-by-side in peace; through this remarkable and touching film, they teach us something profound as well. —Peter L. Stein Director Lisa Gossels in person at the Castro.

Join us for a free lunchtime conversation,

Is Dialogue Possible? How Films Help Us Talk About Israel (...Or Not), Thursday, July 29, at 11:30 am at the Castro (see page 31)

Cine Ar t s Roda JC C SF

Sun, Aug 1 Sat, Aug 7 Sun, Aug 8

2:00 PM 4:15 PM 3:45 PM

Cas tro Cine Ar t s Roda

Tue, Jul 27 Sun, Aug 1 Sat, Aug 7

4:00 PM 12:00 PM 2:15 PM

A room and a Half

protektor Bay Area Premiere Czech Republic, 2009, 98 min., color, Czech w/Eng. subtitles Director: Marek Najbrt

Screenwriters: Benjamin Tucek, Marek Najbrt, Robert Geisler Cinematographer: Miloslav Holman Editor: Pavel Hrdlicka Principal Cast: Jana Plodkova, Klara Meliskova, Marek Daniel

Sponsored by Michael Ehrenzweig Visually stunning, this Czech thriller unfolds in Prague, 1938. Life is about to turn upside down as Germany prepares to occupy Czechoslovakia and the love between a husband and wife is put to the ultimate test. Emil, a radio reporter, is increasingly jealous of his wife Hana’s new success as an actress and her new circle of male friends. However, when German forces arrive, Emil suddenly faces an irresistible offer from his National Socialist employer: His boss will pretend he doesn’t know Emil’s wife is Jewish as long as Emil accepts a promotion to become the on-air voice of the Nazi propaganda. While Emil rises to celebrity status—meeting women, staying out late drinking and singing—Hana is confined to their home, no longer able to work. Resisting Emil’s attempts to control her every move, however, she sneaks out of the apartment and finds comfort in the company of a theater projectionist. Soon delving together into drugs and pranks—including boldly photographing Hana wearing her yellow star in front of “Jews Not Permitted” signs—the two embark on a set of dangerous adventures in this highly original drama exploring how war produces the most odious of compromises. —Nani Ratnawati

Russia, 2008, 130 min., color, Russian w/Eng. subtitles

Director: Andrey Khrzhanovsky Screenwriters: Andrey Khrzhanovsky, Yuriy Arabov Cinematographer: Vladimir Brylyakov

Co-Sponsored by Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow in memory of Seymour Fromer, trailblazer and champion of Jewish arts and culture Veteran animator and documentary filmmaker Andrey Khrzhanovsky’s feature debut is a lyrical masterpiece bursting with images from the life of writer Joseph Brodsky. The brilliant Russian Jewish poet, who made his home in the United States after being expelled from the USSR in 1972, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987. Khrzhanovsky skillfully weaves a fictional account of an anonymous visit by an elderly, exiled Brodsky to his native St. Petersburg with the story of his growing up an only child in the rapidly changing post-WWII era. Conjuring a cinematic alchemy of music, animation and drama, the director also makes a nod to literature, creating for Brodsky his own filmic version of Remembrance of Things Past. As a young man, Brodsky—living under the repressive Soviet regime—asserted that Russia would be free when Pravda published Proust in its pages. Rarely has the city of St. Petersburg been captured as beautifully as in this nostalgic paean to childhood and a Soviet Union enamored of its poets and writers. Evoking Fellini and Tarkovsky, this extraordinary film features talking, hand-drawn cats and—in a magical moment—the animated flying exodus of musical instruments from the apartments of St. Petersburg’s Jews, who themselves remain gravity bound to the streets ruled by Joseph Stalin. —Nancy K. Fishman

Director Andrey Khrzhanovsky in person at the Castro screening.

Cas tro Roda

Mon, Jul 26 Sat, Jul 31

4:30 PM 9:45 PM

Cas tro Roda

Mon, Jul 26 Mon, Aug 2

9:00 PM 6:00 PM

Sayed Kashua - Forever scared Northern California Premiere Israel, 2009, 52 min., color, Arabic, Hebrew w/Eng. subtitles

Scarface

Director: Dorit Zimbalist Cinematographers: Dorit Zimbalist, Evytar Lavy Editor: Batsheva Janco

Sayed Kashua (2010 SFJFF Freedom of Expression Award recipient, see page 9) is a talented and ambitious Israeli writer with a top-rated television comedy series, Arab Labor, but Kashua never feels at home. He’s a Palestinian citizen of Israel, a walking, talking oxymoron, an invisible man constantly called upon to justify himself, his work and even his decision to write in Hebrew. Director Dorit Zimbalist’s fast-paced documentary follows Kashua’s search for a home for his family, making us feel what it’s like to be a stranger in your own land, constantly afraid of the violence that ripples just beneath the surface. Filmed over seven years, Sayed Kashua - Forever Scared is a fascinating journey inside the complicated life and complex mind of a unique creative force. —Alan Snitow

ww w.sfjff.org

Preceded by

Arab Labor: Season 1, Episode 10: “Independence Day” Director: Roni Ninio Screenwriter: Sayed Kashua Principal cast: Norman Issa, Clara Khoury, Mariano Idelman

Israel, 2008, 24 min., color, Hebrew, Arabic w/Eng. subtitles

Cinematographers: Lee Garmes, L.W. O’Connell Editor: Edward Curtiss Principal Cast: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Osgood Perkins

United States, 1932, 93 min., black & white, English Directors: Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson Screenwriter: Ben Hecht

Warning: This is not a Jewish movie! Scarface is an unforgettable gangster classic featuring one of the most talented Jewish actors of all time, Paul Muni (born Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund). Muni plays Tony Camonte (aka Scarface), a bloodthirsty Prohibition-era mobster on the rise. Tony challenges boss Johnny Lovo, moving in on Lovo’s mistress, Poppy. Tony thinks there are bad girls like Poppy and good girls like his sister Cesca, although secretly his free-spirited sister aspires to be a moll. Director Howard Hawks’ early talkie—penned by veteran Chicago journalist Ben Hecht after the murderous machinations of Chicago’s notorious Al Capone—is an excellent example of a gangster picture that would have had a Jewish subtext for Jewish audiences of its day because of Muni’s fame in the Yiddish theatre. Scarface also brims with the not-so-subtle message of an ethnic community (in this case Italian) as a foreign and evil threat to dominant American culture. Muni (The Story of Louis Pasteur, The Last Angry Man) was born in Lemberg in 1895 and made his debut in New York’s Yiddish theatre in 1907. A versatile performer, he acted on Broadway as well as the silver screen. He is exceptional as Scarface, a ruthless criminal with an itchy trigger finger and a temper to match. —Nancy K. Fishman Screening as part of Tough Guys: Images of Jewish Gangsters in Film

866.558.4253

–see page 7

In a patriotic publicity stunt, a millionaire promises to give one million shekels to the first Israeli baby born on Independence Day. The race is on for Amjad, the series protagonist (and screenwriter Sayed Kashua’s alter-ego), whose very pregnant wife Bushra might just be convinced to push a little harder... This concluding episode of the premiere season of Kashua’s hit series Arab Labor was produced as a one-time special to be aired during Israel’s Independence Day holidays in 2008.

Print courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Sayed Kashua in person at the Castro. For Arab Labor episodes from Season 2 –see page 12.

Cas tro Roda

Thu, Jul 29 Mon, Aug 2

3:45 PM 4:00 PM

Cas tro Roda

Sun, Jul 25 Wed, Aug 4

10:00 PM 9:15 PM

Film and Performance

a SMALL act Bay Area Premiere United States, 2009, 88 min., color, English, Gikuyu, Swahili, Swedish w/Eng. subtitles

THE “SOCALLED” MOVIE

Director/Screenwriter: Jennifer Arnold Cinematographer: Patti Lee Editors: Carl Pfirman, Tyler Hubby

generous support for this program provided by the barbro osher pro suecia foundation Can a single act of generosity change the course of a person’s life? Growing up in rural Kenya, Chris Mburu, like most of those around him, found poverty blocking his path to education, steering him instead toward coffee-picking at $1.50 a week. But his prospects changed suddenly when Hilde Back, a Jewish schoolteacher living in Sweden, anonymously contributed a few dollars a month to sponsor Chris’s education. The world opened: Unbeknownst to his benefactor, Chris went on to become a Harvard-educated human rights lawyer, determined to return to his village and pass on the gift of education to a new generation of promising, but desperately poor, Kenyan children. In Jennifer Arnold’s riveting and inspiring documentary, we are eyewitnesses to a living example of “paying it forward,” as we follow Chris’s efforts to honor his benefactor by providing scholarships in her name, and discover the friendship that has grown between Chris and the now elderly Hilde—a refugee from Hitler’s Germany who herself had been the recipient of anonymous kindnesses in her adopted country of Sweden. Equally affecting is the film’s portrait of three Kenyan schoolchildren trying to break the cycle of poverty, as their dreams of secondary education hinge on qualifying for the scholarships. Premiered at 2010 Sundance Film Festival. —Peter L. Stein Director Jennifer Arnold in person at the Castro. Film subjects invited.

Ticketholders to the July 24 screening are invited upstairs to the Castro Mezzanine after the film and Q&A. Enjoy bagels, meet multimedia artists and sample the New Jewish Filmmaking Project’s Half-Remembered Stories (see page 30).

United States Premiere Canada, 2010, 87 min., color, English

Director: Garry Beitel Cinematographer: Marc Gadoury Editor: Dominique Sicotte

Meet Socalled (aka Josh Dolgin): musician, rapper, composer, magician, filmmaker and visual artist, to name just a few of his talents! Some may know him from the music video You Are Never Alone (a YouTube sensation that garnered over two million hits), where his face literally transforms into a film projector. Blasting through the boundaries that separate different cultures, eras and generations, Socalled creates a wholly unique sound combining klezmer, funk, soul and hip-hop. Not too shabby for a nice Jewish boy from Montreal. Socalled is a musical alchemist, always looking for the next old thing to make new again, whether it’s introducing funk trombone legend Fred Wesley (of James Brown’s famous band, the J.B.’s) or inspiring 1950s lounge pianist Irving Fields to pen a new hit song. Shot partly in Socalled’s Montreal neighborhood, where Hasidic Jews and hipsters crowd the sidewalks, and following him on tour through New York, France and an emotionally spiritual trip back to his ancestral home of Ukraine, The “Socalled” Movie is a dynamic, kaleidoscopic portrait of an iconoclastic artist at the peak of his powers. —Joshua Moore

Director Garry Beitel and Socalled in person at the Castro. Special live performance

Featuring Socalled and singer Katie Moore following the Castro screening. Enter to win free tickets at jdubrecords.org

Preceded by

MAURICE AT THE WORLD’S FaIR United States, 2010, 4 min., color and black & white, English. Directors: Spike Jonze and Lance Bangs

A humorous take on a story from author/illustrator Maurice Sendak’s childhood, produced with love by Spike Jonze (director, Where the Wild Things Are) with Catherine Keener and friends for Sendak on his 80th birthday. Cas tro Cine Ar t s Roda Rafael

Sat, Jul 24 Sat, Jul 31 Thu, Aug 5 Sun, Aug 8

11:00 AM 12:00 PM 4:30 PM 12:00 PM

Cas tro Roda

Tue, Jul 27 Sat, Aug 7

9:15 PM 9:15 PM

STALIN THoUGht OF YOU

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Netherlands, Russia, United States, 2009, 100 min., color, Russian w/Eng. subtitles

866.558.4253

Director/Editor: Kevin McNeer Cinematographer: Sergei Polikov

Israel, 2008, 57 min., color, Hebrew w/Eng. subtitles

Director: Tali Shalom Ezer Cinematographer: Radek Ladczuk Editor: Aya Somech Principal Cast: Amir Wolf, Lana Etinger

Stalin Thought of You is Kevin McNeer’s portrait of Russian political cartoonist Boris Efimov, whose poison-pen drawings and caricatures filled the pages of satirical magazines from Lenin’s time to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. As the documentary opens, the relentlessly charming Efimov is celebrating his 104th birthday on prime-time television. His survival is made more considerable given that the former Kremlin insider’s beloved brother, journalist and Pravda editor Mikhail Koltsov, was charged by Stalin with being an “enemy of the people.” Just how Boris survived his relationship with “history’s most prolific mass murderer” by carefully navigating the brutal whims of the dictator makes for a riveting narrative. Efimov, whose humorous renderings of German leaders earned him a “find and hang” order from the Nazis, went on to win two Stalin Prizes after the war ended. The interviews that thread through the astonishing archival material find the effusive Efimov recalling a century of Russian history, sometimes challenging filmmaker McNeer while occasionally pausing to let a painful recollection pass. Stalin Thought of You is a dizzying and deeply moving chronicle of two brothers and one dictator whose crossed paths illuminate the complex story of a nation. —Thomas Logoreci

It takes a true artist to make a thing of beauty out of disturbing material. Tali Shalom Ezer’s lyrical film tells the story of Eli, a profoundly damaged 32-year-old man incapable of physical touch, who recoils even when his beloved nephew holds his hand. Enter Hagar, a surrogate assigned by Eli’s therapist to help him practice emotional and sexual intimacy in a controlled environment. The two meet weekly in an airy “bedroom,” a safe space where Eli can begin to process his relationships with his fawning mother and intense sister, as well as the crushing secrets from his past. Ezer delivers her gracefully paced story with supreme confidence, expertly supported by Radek Ladczuk’s gorgeous cinematography. The acting, meanwhile, is uniformly superb, particularly Amir Wolf (Eli) and Lana Ettinger (Hagar), whose portrayal of two strangers meeting under artificial circumstances to create transformative human connection is pitch-perfect and mesmerizing. —Hagar Scher

Preceded by

United States Premiere

Patriot

Israel, 2009, 25 min., color, Hebrew w/Eng. subtitles

Israel, 2009, 7 min., color

Surrogate

Preceded by

Guided Tour Director: Benjamin Freidenberg

Director: Roy Iddan

A German Jewish veteran and war hero ironically finds himself a prisoner in a concentration camp during World War II, his Iron Cross replaced by a Jewish star, in this haunting animated tale of pride and honor. —Joshua Moore

Roda JC C SF

NOTE: This film contains nudity.

Thu, Aug 5 Sat, Aug 7

2:00 PM 4:00 PM

Eitan is a lonely young man who works the night shift painting dividing lines on Jerusalem’s streets and calls chat lines for conversation and connection. He wanders between imagination and reality, clarity and blurriness, on the border between identities, somewhere between the broken lines. Winner, Best Short, 2009 Jerusalem International Film Festival. —Hagar Scher

Cine Ar t s JC C SF

Mon, Aug 2 Sun, Aug 8

4:00 PM 8:30 PM

TE EXTRAñO (i misS yOu) United States Premiere Argentina, Mexico, 2010, 96 min., color, Spanish w/Eng. subtitles Director: Fabian Hofman

War Against the Weak

Screenwriter: Diana Cardozo Cinematographer: Alberto Anaya Editor: Miguel Schverdfinger Principal Cast: Fermin Volcoff, Martin Slipak, Susana Pampin

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 recommended for adults and teenagers; it may not be appropriate for children under 14. Preceded by

New Jewish Filmmaking Project: esCAPE FROm SUBURbIA World Premiere

Northern California Premiere United States, 2010, 90 min., color, English

Director/Screenwriter/Editor: Justin Strawhand Cinematographer: Jay Silver

Co-sponsored by alan ramo The pseudoscience of eugenics—selective human breeding for “improvement” of the species—infamously fed Nazi sterilization policy in the 1930s right up through the genocide of the 1940s. But what people may not know is eugenics has American roots. This stimulating documentary traces eugenics’ international history with cinematic verve and chilling insight. The story begins with Francis Galton, 19th-century inventor of biometrics and Darwin’s cousin, who theorizes the hereditary transmission of mental as well as physical traits, proposing humanity can be evolutionarily advanced through scientific insight and management—an idea he terms eugenics. The idea gains currency as U.S. institutions and the traditional elite, including reform-minded Progressives like Teddy Roosevelt, react with race-conscious alarm to the high tide of immigration from southern and eastern Europe. By the 1920s an international association of eugenics societies agrees to lobby the centers of world power on behalf of its agenda—one that soon has direct ties to Germany’s new Nazi regime. Visually captivating, and interspersed with movingly understated testimonials from targets of the eugenics legacy, War Against the Weak documents an enduring history in bold, urgent strokes and with meticulous care, complicating the usual accounting of right and left, reactionary and progressive, while deepening our understanding of the underlying motors of change in Western civilization’s fraught social evolution. —Robert Avila

Director: Mayana Bonapart

United States, 2010, 7 min., color, English

DIRECTOR Justin Strawhand in person at the Castro.

Uncle Andy died backpacking through Asia when he was 23. Thirty years later, his teenage niece dreams of adventure as she pores over the recordings he left behind. (Part of the Half-Remembered Stories digital exhibit at www.njfp.org. See also page 30.) Ticketholders to the July 24 screening are invited upstairs to the Castro Mezzanine before the film. Enjoy bagels, meet multimedia artists and sample the NJFP’s Half-Remembered Stories (see page 30).

Cas tro Cine Ar t s Roda Rafael

Sat, Jul 24 Mon, Aug 2 Wed, Aug 4 Sun, Aug 8

1:30 PM 6:15 PM 6:45 PM 6:30 PM

Cas tro Roda

Tue, Jul 27 Wed, Aug 4

1:30 PM 4:30 PM

The Wolberg Family Cinematographer: Céline Bozon Editor: Emmanuelle Castro Principal Cast: François Damiens, Léopoldine Serre, Valérie Benguigui

France, 2009, 80 min., color, French w/Eng. subtitles Director/Screenwriter: Axelle Ropert

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THE WORST COMPANY IN THE WORLD

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Director: Regev Contes

Israel, 2009, 50 min., color, Hebrew w/Eng. subtitles

Screenwriters: Arik Lahav-Leibovich, Regev Contes Cinematographer: Itai Raziel Editor: Arik Lahav-Leibovich

Co-sponsored by Fred Levin & Nancy Livingston, The Shenson Foundation

double bill co-sponsored by craig harrison’s expressions of excellence! tm

In the gorgeous snowy melancholy of winter we meet Simon Wolberg, Jewish mayor of a small town in French Basque country. If Jewish and mayor and Basque are words you don’t expect to hear strung together, no one is more cognizant of this than Simon himself. As mayor, he has vowed to modernize this isolated burg and largely succeeds. As paterfamilias, he provides his family with the effortless life and sleekly contemporary home of the provincial bourgeois. But more than a mayor, more than a father, Simon has acted the role of rabbi—the young, eccentric kind who brings rock-and-roll to Hebrew school in an effort to keep the young people engaged—and sometimes the role of God. Now, both his town and family have outgrown his nourishing, controlling ways. The elegant directorial debut of French screenwriter Axelle Ropert looks at a family and society coming of age and coming apart, and says this is not necessarily a bad thing. Ropert offers an offbeat, intimate view of smart, naturally articulate characters: Simon (François Damiens), whose defensive moxie befits the post-Shoah generation; his wife Marianne (Valérie Benguigui) and teenage daughter Delphine (Léopoldine Serre), each in her own way exhorting Simon to change before it’s too late. Of course, no one knows better than Simon that it is too late. Premiered at 2009 Cannes Film Festival. —Judy Bloch

Love and humor are plentiful—even if business isn’t—in Regev Contes’s personal and involving documentary about the small Israeli insurance company his father is running into the ground. Karol (Regev’s father) is an immigrant from Czechoslovakia who oversees the company along with his brother Latzi, a man whose talent for cooking potatoes with butter far outstrips his business acumen. The third employee, Moshe, is an old friend who specializes in napping on the couch. Perennially on the verge of bankruptcy, the failing agency functions more smoothly as a social network for these divorced bachelors who laugh and eat marshmallow pies together. They are intelligent, educated and good-humored, to be sure. They just haven’t the slightest idea how to run a successful enterprise. Director Contes finally steps in, literally placing himself in the business—and the film—in an effort to increase company efficiency, but the resistance he meets runs thicker than marshmallow filling. This poignant film, which won the Mayor of Tel-Aviv-Yaffo Award at 2009 Doc Aviv, ostensibly chronicles the operations of the company over one fiscal year, while affectionately exploring the intricacies of a father-son relationship. —Nancy K. Fishman

Perfect Mother World Premiere

North American Premiere

Director: Theo Rigby

Israel, 2008, 62 min., color, Hebrew w/Eng. subtitles

United States, 2010, 6 min., color, English

Through home movies captured on Super 8 and 16mm, a mother tries to understand what happened to the “perfect” image of her own departed mother. —Joshua Moore Director Theo Rigby in person at the Castro.

Cas tro Cine Ar t s Roda Rafael

Preceded by

Baabaa the Sheep Sets Out to Bring Love to the world

Preceded by

West Coast Premiere

Mon, Jul 26 Tue, Aug 3 Thu, Aug 5 Sat, Aug 7

2:15 PM 6:00 PM 6:30 PM 6:45 PM

Director: Gil Karni Cinematographer: Ariel Glixon Editor: Itay Livneh

This wondrous real-life fairytale documents the rise and fall of a kindhearted and humble young artist’s creation: a sponge-toy sheep named Baabaa that becomes a veritable craze in Israel. Searching for a warm home for his little sheep, spawned in an artists’ outdoor market, Itamar encounters a mysterious fortuneteller who foresees an incredible future for him overseas. Soon enough, Itamar’s “sheep business” is streamlined by Chinese factories producing Baabaa pajamas, T-shirts, stationery— even a cartoon show! But as business booms, Itamar’s idealistic intentions begin to weigh on his conscience, putting the future of Baabaa up for grabs. —Joshua Moore Cine Ar t s Roda

Sun, Aug 1 Wed, Aug 4

4:00 PM 12:00 PM

SFJFF THANKS OUR CO-PRESENTERS!

YOU woN’T mIsS ME Northern California Premiere United States, 2009, 81 min., color and black & white, English Director: Ry Russo-Young

Screenwriters: Ry Russo-Young, Stella Schnabel Cinematographer: Kitao Sakurai Editor: Gil Kofman Principal Cast: Stella Schnabel ,Carlen Altman, Simon O’ Conner

Loner, dissenter, flirt, enemy, lover, that’s Shelly Brown, a 23-year-old alienated urban misfit recently released from a psychiatric hospital. She’s back in New York City seeking solace and affirmation but finding little of either. Stella Schnabel (daughter of painter/filmmaker Julian Schnabel) brilliantly evokes Shelly’s struggles to lead an uncompromised life in a very compromised world in a performance that won her the Best Actress award at Method Fest 2009. Tumultuous friendships, failed love affairs and disastrous acting auditions all await Shelly as she draws further and further into a go-nowhere lifestyle induced by her own destructive behavior and fears of further loss. Director Ry Russo-Young (Orphans), aptly using a multitude of different formats (HD, 16mm, Super 8, DV), presents a fractured character study of a contemporary young Jewish woman at odds with the world and herself. Balancing order and abstraction, verité and high theatricality, Russo-Young applies a daring and emotionally honest style to the material reminiscent of indie filmmaking pioneers John Cassavetes and Agnès Varda. In fact, the character of Shelly Brown arose through an intensive collaboration between director and actress involving a series of videotaped interviews. The result is a tough, funny and heartbreaking central character and a film that paints in vivid detail an evocative portrait of a contemporary rebel. Premiered at 2009 Sundance Film Festival, 2009 Gotham Award Winner: Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You. —Joshua Moore

Cas tro

Sat, Jul 24

10:15 PM

Each year SFJFF invites community organizations to help spread the word about the Festival and films of interest to a wide range of audiences. We call these outreach partners “co-presenters.” SFJFF is solely responsible for programming our films and events.

We thank our 2010 outreach partners and co-presenters: Adult Department of the JCCSF Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) Alliance Française de San Francisco American Jewish World Service Anti-Defamation League, Central Pacific Region Arab Film Festival Avodah Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) Bay Area Women in Film and Media (BAWIFM) BJE Jewish Community Library Building Jewish Bridges California Film Institute Center for Asian American Media, SFIAAFF Congregation Beth Am, Los Altos Hills Congregation Beth Sholom, San Francisco Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, San Francisco Congregation Sherith Israel, San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum Eugene & Elinor Friend Center for the Arts at the JCCSF Frameline Freight & Salvage Coffee House Goethe-Institut Guardian Arts Series Hadassah, Marin Chapter Hadassah, San Francisco Chapter Holocaust Center of Northern California Interfaith Connection of the JCCSF Israel Center

Jewish Community Center of the East Bay Jewish Family & Children’s Services of San Francisco Jewish Family & Children’s Services of the Greater East Bay Jewish Music Festival Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation The Jewish Theatre San Francisco Jewish Welcome Network JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa) Klez California Kritzer/Ross Émigré Program of the JCCSF LGBT Alliance Litquake, San Francisco’s Literary Festival New Israel Fund Peninsula Temple Beth El Progressive Jewish Alliance Reboot San Francisco Cinematheque San Francisco Film Society SF Noir Festival Shalom Bayit Silent Film Festival Temple Isaiah, Lafayette Temple Sinai of Oakland The 79ers, a program of Jewish Family and Children’s Services of San Francisco The Hub at JCCSF United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF) Women’s Film Festival Youth Speaks

SFjfF’s New JEwIsh FILMmAKInG PROJecT Produced by Citizen Film

HALF-REMEMBERED STORIES A Zombie Day of Atonement. A great-grandmother’s infidelities. An escape from Czech nationalists on the road to Manchuria. On the way to creating a new future, the next generation of Jewish storytellers are rediscovering their past. By creating and sharing media at a staggering rate, young bloggers and Youtubers are changing the way we think about filmmaking. So we invited media artists in their late teens and early 20s to collaborate using stilldeveloping web-based technologies. Short video-surprises are being presented in all SFJFF theater venues. Discover new ways to ask questions, to be Jewish and to “think Jewish” in the digital age. Can a half-remembered story become a whole truth? Is it possible to complete a picture on a constantly shifting canvas? Come see for yourself! Multimedia stories also appear in Zeek Magazine, powered by the Forward at zeek.forward.com

FOR THE FULL EXPERIENCE, VISIT WWW.NJFP.ORG.

Join SFJFF, the NJFP, and ZEEK magazine for a bagel reception at the Castro Theatre, Saturday July 24 at 12:30pm, preceding a program of shorts from the NJFP and the screening of Te Extraño (I Miss You)–see page 27. Production Team

Story tellers

Sam Ball Director

Samantha Abernathey Corey Abraham Mayana Bonapart Lee Goldin Hannah Lesser Adam Liss Klaira Markenzon Yenny Martin Alex Pollak Zoe Pollak Jason Zavaleta

866.558.4253

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Sophie Constantinou Co-director Kate Stilley Steiner Supervising Editor Emma Bailey Production Manager Saundarya Thapa Technology Associate Jeremy Dauber Lead Adviser

Media advisers

Steve Bloom Laurie Coyle Anne Flatte Gina Leibrecht Laurie Lezin-Schmidt Jeremiah Moore Daniel Plotnick Alan Scher Julie Wyman

About sfjff’s New Jewish Filmmaking Project

Since 2002, 50 young storytellers have collaborated with Citizen Film’s team of professional filmmakers to create fully accomplished, intensely personal documentaries that explore the borderlands of Jewish identity. This yearround program of the SFJFF offers a set of signposts for what Jewish identity has been and is becoming. The New Jewish Filmmaking Project is made possible by the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, Marin and Sonoma Counties and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund.

we’re talking about it Don’t miss these onstage discussions PANELS and conversations Many SFJFF screenings are followed by Q&A’s with visiting artists, directors and producers. We have planned the following extended conversations and two special panel discussions, but this is only a sampling of the conversations that will take place during theFestival. For updates on expected guests, go to www.sfjff.org. Free to ticket holders for the film that precedes the panel or Q&A. SATURDAY, JULY 24, 11:00 am Q&A with Jennifer Arnold, director of A Small Act SATURDAY JULY 24, 7:00 pm OPENING NIGHT: Q&A with director Ludi Boeken, actor Lia Hoensbroech and memoirist Marga Spiegel following Saviors in the Night SUNDAY, JULY 25, 4:00 pm PANEL DISCUSSION: Tough Guys: Images of Jewish Gangsters in Film follows 4:00pm screening of Lepke. See page 7 for full description of panelists SUNDAY, JULY 25, 7:30 pm Q& A with Radu Gabrea, director of Gruber’s Journey

WEDNESDAY, JULY 28 4:00pm (Castro) and sunday, august 1 6:45pm (berkeley) Conversation with Ronit Avni, producer of Budrus WEDNESDAY JULY 28, 6:30 pm Screenwriter Sayed Kashua and Director Shai Capon, Arab Labor Freedom of Expression Award presentation and Q&A THURSDAY JULY 29, 8:45 pm CLOSING NIGHT: Erik Greenberg Anjou, director of The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground, and members of the band SATURDAY JULY 31, 2:00 pm (Berkeley) and SUNDAY AUGUST 1, 8:45 pm (Palo Alto) Q&A with screenwriter Sayed Kashua and director Shai Capon, Arab Labor SATURDAY AUGUST 7, 4:15 pm (Berkeley) and SUNDAY AUGUST 8, 3:45pm (JCCSF) Q&A with director Robin Hessman, My Perestroika

MONDAY JULY 26, 9:00 pm Q&A with Andrey Khrzhanovsky, director of A Room and a Half TUESDAY, JULY 27, 9:15 pm Garry Beitel, director of The “Socalled” Movie Musical guests: Socalled with singer Katie Moore Q&A and musical performance following the Castro screening WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 1:15 pm (free matinee) Frank Stiefel, director of Ingelore Ingelore Herz Honigstein, subject and director’s mother Q&A following the Castro screening Lunchtime panel & conversation

Is Dialogue Possible? How Films Help Us Talk About Israel (…Or Not) Thursday July 29, 11:30am Castro Theatre, SF FREE The controversy following SFJFF’s 2009 screening of the documentary Rachel left many in the Jewish community struggling with how best to broach difficult issues regarding Israel through programming. Join filmmakers—including Ronit Avni (Budrus) and Lisa Gossels (My So Called Enemy)—and experts in civic engagement to discuss the role (and perhaps limits) of film to foster constructive dialogue about potentially difficult topics. Moderated by Ellen Schneider, former executive producer of PBS’s P.O.V. documentary series, and founder of Active Voice, an organization that helps create civic dialogue and public engagement around social-issue documentaries. Please check www.sfjff.org for updated participant information.

SPOTLIGHTS

In addition to People of the Book (see page 10) and Tough Guys: Images of Jewish Gangsters in Film (see page 7), enjoy these thematic spotlights: IMMIGRANT STORIES 9 Years Later (see page 11) Bena (see page 13) Father’s Footsteps (see page 15) Hungry Hearts (see page 8) Long Distance with You Can Dance (see page 21) Voices of the former Soviet Union A Room and a Half (see page 23) My Perestroika (see page 22) Stalin Thought of You (see page 26) Latin American Dramas Anita (see page 6) Ilusiones Ópticas (see page 17) Te Extraño (I Miss You) (see page 27) 31

Join Us for

parties & special events opening night events

other special events

SATURDAY, JULY 24 Opening Night Post-Film Bash

Saturday, July 10 Pre-Festival Kick-off Free Outdoor Screening: DIRTY DANCING

Opening Night is moving to Saturday night! Celebrate the 30th Anniversary San Francisco Jewish Film Festival at our Opening Night Bash, this year taking place AFTER the Opening Night Film so you can party into the night. Enjoy a dazzling array of sweet & savory food and libations by some of the Bay Area’s best. See and be seen, schmooze with filmmakers and special guests and tap your feet to the swinging tunes of local faves Gaucho, named ‘Best Jazz Group’ in the 2009 SF Weekly Music Awards. This year we’re adding the Backroom with drinks, desserts, DJ, dancing, retrospective slideshow, cool photo booth provided by Yelp.com, more surprises and did we say desserts? It’s all happening at the historic and spacious Swedish American Hall, upstairs from the Café du Nord. Tickets $75/$65 for Jewish Film Forum members — includes reserved seat for film at the Castro.

Have the time of your life at SFJFF’s pre-Festival screening of 1980s classic Dirty Dancing in San Francisco’s Union Square. In collaboration with the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation’s FilmNight in the Park, the city’s most popular outdoor screening organization, SFJFF is pleased to bring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey’s legendary chemistry to the big screen. For more information, see page 3. Union Square, San Francisco. At dusk (approx. 8:30pm)

Swedish American Hall/Café Du Nord 2174 Market @Sanchez, Main Floor & Upstairs, SF Party 9:30pm-11:30pm. Film program starts at 7:00pm at the Castro. Event parking available for $10 at Everett Middle School on 17th St. between Church/Sanchez, a 5-minute walk from both the party venue and the Castro Theatre! The Backroom portion of the Bash is ADA accessible.

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Thursday, July 29 Closing Night Celebration at the Castro

Join members of the band and stars of The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground, along with the film’s director Erik Greenberg Anjou for a Closing Night San Francisco celebration at the Castro Theatre. As usual, enjoy fantastic goodie bags and the pre-film tunes of the Mighty Wurlitzer. 8:45pm at the Castro Theatre

Saturday, July 31 Berkeley Opening Night The Klezmatics party continues! All audience members at the Berkeley screening of The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground are invited to enjoy delicious post-film noshing and fabulous conversation in the courtyard of the Roda Theatre. Director Erik Greenberg Anjou will be in attendance. Reception follows 7:15PM screening of The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground. Roda Theatre (@ Berkeley Repertory Theatre).

Enjoy Festival

discounts & Deals FESTIVAL TALK SPOTS

Life is Sweet. Enjoy these sweet deals.

Films spark conversation. So why not chat in comfort? After a Festival film, sit back and relax at one of these SFJFF talk spots, all located within walking distance from one of our venues. Drink in the atmosphere and enjoy a beverage with a discount on us.

Save a pretty penny while satisfying that pre or post-screening sweet tooth at these great ice cream and gelato purveyors — all located within a stone’s throw of our screening theaters! These delicious discounts are only honored with presentation of an SFJFF ticket stub at the following locations during the dates listed below:

San Francisco Castro: Blush Wine Bar 476 Castro Street, SF You get $1 off any glass of wine and 25% off any bottle with presentation of SFJFF film ticket for the duration of the Castro run. JCCSF: Swank 488 Presidio Avenue (between California St & Sacramento St), SFAll day happy hour pricing and drink specials with presentation of SFJFF film ticket for the duration of the JCCSF run. Berkeley THE JAZZ CAFFE 2087 Addison Street, Berkeley You get $1 off any glass of wine with presentation of film ticket for the duration of the Berkeley run.

People of the Bookstore SFJFF is delighted to partner with beloved local independent retailer Books, Inc. to bring you special deals on select books written by authors profiled in our People of the Book series. Look out for dedicated displays at select screenings and Books Inc. stores. SFJFF film ticket holders get 15% off any specially marked People of the Book merchandise! Laurel Heights 3515 California Street. SF (between Locust & Spruce) Castro 2275 Market Street, SF Palo Alto Town & Country Village

SAN FRANCISCO July 24–29 Hot Cookie 407 Castro Street, SF Buy 2 cookies, get one free (of like size) BERKELEY July 31– August 7 Gelateria Naia 2016 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley Free size upgrade and special SFJFF flavor PALO ALTO July 31–August 3 CineArts @ Palo Alto Square Free size upgrade on ice cream at the theater concessions stand SAN RAFAEL August 7–9 Double Rainbow 860 4th Street, San Rafael 2 for 1 discount (ice cream only)

Ticket Deals 10-FLIX VOUCHER PACK The more you see, the more you save! Buy a 10-Flix Voucher Pack, good for 10 regular priced tickets of your choice, and save $20. See page 48 for details. REEL PASS It’s a REEL bargain if you’re 25 or under! One pass for $40 is good for all shows and all theaters — including Opening and Closing Night films and special programs. See page 48 for details.

enter to win free tickets on twitter! For exciting festival updates and a chance to win film tickets, follow us @jewishfilmnews. Wants to talk to us on Twitter? For general tweets (and tweet-backs!) follow@SFJewishFilm.

CaSTRº THEAtRE

CINEaRTS

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Saturday, july 24

Saturday, July 31

San Francisco / July 24-29

Palo Alto / July 31-August 3

A Small Act

12:00 PM

1:30 PM

Te Extraño (I Miss You) with Escape from Suburbia preceded by Opening Day bagel reception

2:00 PM Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story

4:15 PM

4:00 PM

Ilusiones Ópticas with What About Me?

7:00 PM Saviors in the Night Opening Night Film Followed by Opening Night Bash at Swedish American Hall @ 9:30pm

You Won’t Miss Me

A Film Unfinished

6:45 PM Saviors in the Night

9:00 PM Father’s Footsteps

12:00 PM

My So Called Enemy

2:00 PM

My Perestroika

22 28

11:00 AM Grace Paley: Collected Shorts

1:15 PM Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story

4:00 PM

The Worst Company in the World with Baabaa the Sheep

Lepke followed by panel

6:30 PM

Anita

7:30 PM Gruber’s Journey

8:45 PM

Arab Labor: Season 2

10:00 PM Scarface

Monday, August 2

4:00 PM

2:00 PM

Monday, july 26

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A Small Act

Sunday, August 1 29

Sunday, july 25

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page #

11:00 AM

10:15 PM

Ahead of Time (Free matinee)

4:00 PM Surrogate with Guided Tour

6 12

11 26

12:00 PM

King of the Roaring 20’s - The Story of Arnold Rothstein

6:15 PM

Te Extraño (I Miss You) with Escape from Suburbia

2:15 PM

The Wolberg Family with Perfect Mother

8:30 PM

Bena

4:30 PM

Protektor

Tuesday, AUGUST 3

7:00 PM

Hungry Hearts with live score

9:00 PM

A Room and a Half

2:00 PM

Mrs. Moscowitz and the Cats

4:00 PM

Long Distance with You Can Dance

6:00 PM

The Wolberg Family with Perfect Mother

Tuesday, july 27 11:30 AM

Ahead of Time

1:30 PM War Against the Weak

4:00 PM

My So Called Enemy

6:30 PM

Anita Centerpiece Film

9:15 PM

The “Socalled” Movie with Maurice at the World’s Fair followed by live musical performance

6 25

Wednesday, july 28 11:30 AM

Mrs. Moscowitz and the Cats

1:15 PM

Ingelore with Surviving Hitler (Free matinee)

4:00 PM

Budrus

6:30 PM

Arab Labor: Season 2 Freedom of Expression Award 12

9:00 PM

Army of Crime

Thursday, july 29

@ Palo Alto Square

11:30 AM

Panel: Is Dialogue Possible? How Films Help Us Talk About Israel (…Or Not)

1:00 PM

Bugsy

3:45 PM Sayed Kashua - Forever Scared with Arab Labor: Season 1, Episode 10

6:00 PM

A Film Unfinished

8:45 PM

The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground with Seltzer Works Closing Night includes pre-film extras

8:00 PM Jaffa with The Orange

RODA

at Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Berkeley / July 31-August 7 TIME TITLE

page #

Saturday, july 31

TIME TITLE

page #

Thursday, August 5

12:00 PM

Bena

12:00 PM

2:00 PM

Arab Labor: Season 2

2:00 PM Stalin Thought of You with Patriot

4:30 PM

Utopia in Four Movements live event

4:30 PM

A Small Act

7:00 PM

The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground with Seltzer Works Berkeley Opening Night followed by reception

6:30 PM

The Wolberg Family with Perfect Mother

9:45 PM

Protektor

8:30 PM Jaffa with The Orange

Saturday, August 7

Sunday, august 1 12:00 PM Grace Paley: Collected Shorts

2:15 PM Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story

4:15 PM

A Film Unfinished

6:45 PM

Budrus

9:15 PM Gruber’s Journey

Mrs. Moscowitz and the Cats

12:00 PM

Ahead of Time

2:15 PM

My So Called Enemy

4:15 PM

My Perestroika

7:00 PM Saviors in the Night 9:15 PM

The “Socalled” Movie with Maurice at the World’s Fair

4 25

Monday, august 2 2:15 PM

Long Distance with You Can Dance

4:00 PM Sayed Kashua - Forever Scared with Arab Labor: Season 1, Episode 10

6:00 PM

A Room and a Half

8:45 PM Jews in Shorts: Focus on Israeli Narratives

Tuesday, august 3 2:30 PM

9 Years Later with Perin’s Dual Identity

4:30 PM

Amos Oz: The Nature of Dreams

6:30 PM

Anita

8:45 PM

Ilusiones Ópticas with What About Me?

6 17

Wednesday, august 4 12:00 PM

The Worst Company in the World with Baabaa the Sheep

2:15 PM

Ingelore with Surviving Hitler (Free matinee)

4:30 PM War Against the Weak 6:45 PM

Te Extraño (I Miss You) with Escape from Suburbia

9:15 PM Scarface

27 27 24

JCcSF

RAFAEL

San Rafael / August 7-9 TIME TITLE

San Francisco / August 7-8 page #

Saturday, august 7 12:00 PM

Bugsy

12:00 PM

9 Years Later with Perin’s Dual Identity

2:45 PM

Mrs. Moscowitz and the Cats

2:00 PM

Amos Oz: The Nature of Dreams

4:45 PM

A Film Unfinished

4:00 PM Stalin Thought of You with Patriot

6:45 PM

The Wolberg Family with Perfect Mother

6:30 PM Jaffa with The Orange

8:45 PM

Ilusiones Ópticas with What About Me?

9:00 PM

12:00 PM

A Small Act

2:00 PM Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story

4:15 PM Jaffa with The Orange

6:30 PM

Te Extraño (I Miss You) with Escape from Suburbia

8:55 PM

Bena

6:15 PM Saviors in the Night

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8:30 PM

Arab Labor: Season 2

Bena

Sunday, august 8

Monday, august 9

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page #

Saturday, august 7

Sunday, august 8

TIME TITLE

4 12

12:00 PM

Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades screened with intermission

3:45 PM

My Perestroika

6:15 PM Father’s Footsteps

8:30 PM Surrogate with Guided Tour

DIRECTIONS & PARKING Castro Theatre 415.621.6120

CineArts @ Palo Alto Square 650.493.3456

429 Castro Street (at Market), San Francisco

3000 El Camino Real Bldg. #6, Palo Alto

80 PALO ALTO

101

15TH

S I T Y AV E

101

BAR

CAD

ERO

EG OR

101

CHURCH

SANCHEZ

CASTRO THEATRE AL

CASTRO

PARKING 17TH

R MA

CIVIC CENTER

CAFE DU NORD/ SWEDISH AMERICAN HALL

FROM SAN FRANCISCO FROM THE BAY BRIDGE

VAN NESS

OAK

STAN YAN

FROM GOLDEN GATE PARK

DIVIS ADER O

FROM THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE

FROM SAN JOSE

ST .

FROM SAN JOSE

GE RD MIL L .

Public Transportation

Located on North side of Market St. between Church and Sanchez. Please note, the second floor of Swedish American Hall is not wheelchair accessible. Driving

Mission Street exit. Go straight through first signal. The street ends at Market Street. Left on Market. Café du Nord is on the right side of the street at the end of the block, one block past Safeway. Public Transportation

BART to Civic Center. F-Line streetcar to the corner of Sanchez and Market. Church and Market is also a major Muni stop: the N, M, L and J lines all stop at the Church Street Station.

Driving

101 to Embarcadero Road/Oregon Expy; follow signs for Oregon Expy; slight right at Page Mill Road; left at El Camino Real. Abundant free parking around theatre. Public Transportation

BART to Millbrae. Transfer to Caltrain to California Avenue stop in Palo Alto. Walk to El Camino (left on Alma Street; right on Oregon Expy; merge with Page Mill Road to left on El Camino Real).

Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center 415.454.1222 1118 4th Street, San Rafael THE RAFAEL FILM CENTER FROM SANTA ROSA

Parking Opening Night SF

Everett Middle School, 450 Church Street, San Francisco Enter parking lot from 17th Street, between Church and Sanchez.

CENTRAL SAN RAFAEL

The Roda Theatre 510.647.2949

Café du Nord/Swedish American Hall (Opening Night Bash) 415.861.5016 / 2170 Market Street, San Francisco

Muni K, L, M, F Market Street Bus Lines 33, 35, 37 and 24 BART riders transfer to Muni Metro at the following stations: Embarcadero, Montgomery, Powell, Civic Center.

101

4T H 3R D

2025 Addison Street, Berkeley (at Berkeley Repertory Theatre) FROM RICHMOND / VALLEJO

UN IVE RS

UC BERKELEY CAMPUS

ITY

AD DI SO

580

101 AP

BART

Publ i c T r a nsp or tat ion

FROM THE BAY BRIDGE

FROM WALNUT CREEK

Golden Gate Transit: 1, 23, 25, 26, 32, 34, 60, 65, 70, 80 or 90 to San Rafael Transit at Third and Weatherton. Theatre is five blocks west and one block north. Pa r k ing

580 880

FROM SAN JOSE

FROM SAN RAFAEL BRIDGE

AS HB Y TU

SH AT TU

FROM SAN FRANCISCO

FROM CASTRO VALLEY

FROM OAKLAND

OAKLAND

Parking

Public parking garage on Addison Street, across the street from the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. BART

The Berkeley Station on Shattuck Avenue is around the corner from the theatre. Take a Richmond-bound train and get off at the Berkeley Station. Or, if you’re coming from Richmond, take a Daly City-bound or Fremont-bound train to the Berkeley Station. On the upper level of the station look for the “Shattuck/Addison West” exit. At the top of the stairs, turn left on Addison Street, and you will see the Roda Theatre on the right.

Public parking lots are located at C and 5th Streets; C and 3rd Streets; B and 3rd Streets; Lootens and 3rd Streets.

JCCSF 415.292.1233 3200 California (at Presidio), San Francisco Parking

Available in JCCSF underground parking garage at the west end of the building on California Street—$1.50/half-hour, first 4 hours; $2/hour thereafter. Public Transportation

Muni Lines: 1, 3, 4, 43, 2, 24, 33, 31 and 38.

By Bus

Major AC Transit routes F, 7, 8, 9, 15, 40, 43, 51, 64, 65 and 67 stop nearby.

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AcKNOWLeDGMENTS 2o10

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: Shawn Guthrie & May Haduong Kate Adams Damon Ainsworth Aldongar Productions: Mr.Yerkin Alliance Française de San Francisco: Gregory Douet-Lasne Emmanuella Amene Armstrong & Armstrong: Todd Armstrong Ron Arons Moshe Arzt Freddie Baggerman Dick Bartel Yelias Bender Berkeley Repertory Theatre: Susie Medak, Amanda Williams O’Steen, Heather Bradley Matt Berler Susan Berrin Berlin International Film Festival: Wieland Speck Berlin Jewish Film Festival: Nicola Galliner Rachel Biale Rick Bird Mary Bitterman Lara Boffey Tanya Booth Boston Jewish Film Festival: Sara Rubin California Film Institute: Zoë Elton, Mark Fishkin, Richard Peterson, Janis Plotkin, Dan Zastrow Castro Theatre: The Nasser Family, Bill Longen, Mark Gantor, Gary Oliver, Brian Collette, Richard Blacklock Center for Asian American Media: Stephen Gong, Chi-hui Yang Cinemark: Donna Bradford, Rebecca Dilworth, Frank Gonzales Karen Cirillo Cinephil: Philippa Kowarsky, Ori Bader, Assaf Mor Citizen Film: Sam Ball, Sophie Constantinou Kate Stilley Steiner, Emma Bailey Dan, Carly & Maya Cohen Consulate General of Israel: Akiva Tor, Gideon Lustig, Neta Shacham Contemporary Jewish Museum: Connie Wolf, Dan Schifrin Anne Cook Ninfa Dawson Doc Aviv Film Festival: Ilana Tsur Dolby Labs: Ioan Allen, Tom Bruchs, Jane Ng Gail Dolgin Gale Mondry Eden Productions: Michal Eliav, Estty Sade Patricia Brett Erens Jeannette Etheredge Alfonso Felder and the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation Festival of Jewish Cinema (Aus): Les Rabinowicz Films Boutique: Valeska Neu Films Distribution: Martin Caraux Gum Films: Yoav Roeh Debbie Findling Nancy Fishman Foundation for Jewish Culture: Elise Bernhardt, Andrew Horwitz Frameline: K.C. Price, Jennifer Morris, Desiree Buford Brian Freeman Albert Fried Alison Geballe Lisa Geduldig Stefan Gerard German Consulate General: Michael Ahrens Elizabeth Greene Go2 Films: Hedva Goldschmidt, Rena Sherbill Goethe-Institut: Rudi de Baey

Sasha Goldberg Rebecca Goldman Gary Goldstein Mitch Greenhill Ryland Hale Haifa Film Festival: Pnina Blayer, Amalia Rosen Nina Haft Pat Hamou Tim Hanlon Herbstfilm Production GmbH: Sarah Hormeyer Robert Herman Robin Herman Frederick Hertz Mary Ellen Hester Beth Harris Hoenninger International Film Circuit Inc: Wendy Lidell Israel Center of the Jewish Community Federation: Lital Carmel, Donny Inbar Israel Film Fund: Katriel Schory IsraeliFilms: Dov Gil-Har, Efrat Cohen-Magen ITVS: Claire Aguilar, Cathy Fischer, Cynthia Kane JCC Manhattan: Isaac Zablocki Jerusalem Cinematheque: Lia van Leer, Gilli Mendel, Avinoam Harpak, Meir Russo Jewish Community Center of San Francisco: Brian Garrick, Lenore Naxon, Brett Metzger, Dan Wolf, Carole Zawatsky Jewish Community Center of the East Bay: Sally Flinchbaugh, Leah Greenblat, Ruth Reffkin Jewish Community Endowment Fund: Mark Reisbaum Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco: Jennifer Gorovitz, Karen Bluestone, Julie Golde Jewish Community Relations Council: Rabbi Doug Kahn, Abby Michelson Porth Jewish Media Fund: Eli Evans, Carol Japha The Jewish Museum: Andrew Ingall John Killacky Jenna Weissman Joselit Jim Joseph Foundation: Chip Edelsberg, Adene Sacks, Josh Miller JMT Films: Jean-Michel Treves Spike Jonze Dave Kanter David Katznelson Deborah Kaufman & Alan Snitow Aviva Kempner Itay Ken-Tor Kino Lorber: Richard Lorber, Donald Krim, Gary Palmucci Hannah Kranzberg Landmark Theatres: Steve Indig, Chris Hatfield Latinofusion: Estrella Araiza Naomi Lauter Adrienne Leder Rachel Levin Moshe Levinson LGBT Alliance: Lisa Finkelstein Liberation Films Moses Libitzky Thomas Logoreci Lauren Maas Magyar Filmunió: Katalin Vajda Susan Manning Menemsha Entertainment: Neil Friedman Gary Meyer MGM: Chris Chouinard Greg Minshall National Center for Jewish Film: Sharon P. Rivo, Juliet Burch, Lisa Rivo NBC Universal: Paul Ginsburg Negativ Film Productions: Uta Gildhuis, Zuzana Bielikova

New Israel Fund: Jason Bernstein New Israeli Foundation for Cinema & TV New York Jewish Film Festival: Aviva Weintraub, Richard Peña New Yorker Films: Jonathan Howell Bill Nichols Ninth Street Independent Film Center: Skye Christensen, Adam Ashworth, S. Victoria Brauer, Brian Schulz, Gil Cho Norma Productions: Assaf Amir Oscilloscope Pictures: Dan Berger Pacific Film Archive: Susan Oxtoby Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival: Karen Davis Shana Penn Philo TV: Lenny Lieberman, Evan Stewart, Carolyn Bush Picture This!: Matt Giedlinski, Doug Witkin Pixar Animation Studios: M.T. Silvia Janis Plotkin Pyramide International: Paul Richer Stephanie Rapp Shlomi Ravid Reel Café Bakery: Sharon Dinkin Rezo Films: Nanxi Cheng Ella Rosenblatt Jessica Rosner Alan Rothenberg Ruth Diskin Films: Ruth Diskin, Tal Shanny, Hila Gersenfeld Sam Spiegel Film & Television School: Renen Schorr, Noemi Schory, Noa Ron San Francisco International Film Festival: Graham Leggat, Rod Armstrong, Hilary Hart Rachel Rosen, Sean Uyehara Lela Sarnat Ellen Schneider Kary Schulman Harvey Schwartz Seagull Films: Alla Verlotsky Seventh Arts: Udy Epstein Ellie Shapiro Amy Sherman Tiffany Shlain Sony Pictures: Jared Sapolin Stanford Humanities Center: Marie-Pierre Ulloa Stanford University, Jewish Studies Center: Vered Shemtov Studio Filmowe Largo: Agnieszka Traczewska Sundance Channel: Sarah Eaton Sundance Film Festival: John Cooper, Shari Frilot, Caroline Libresco, David Courier Alysanne Taylor Tel Aviv Cinematheque: Alon Garbuz Tel Aviv University Film Department: Noa Chen, Rachel Wallach Karen Topakian Topia: Sigal Transfax: Karine Benzur, Marek Rozenbaum TTV Productions: Zafrir Kochanovsky UK Jewish Film Festival: Judy Ironside United King Films: David Silber, Limor Edery Versus Production: Caroline Thirion, Marina Haverland Marc Vogl Warner Bros.: Marilee Womack Washington Jewish Film Festival: Susan H. Barocas Cara White Diana Westnedge Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Prusan Leo Wong Yerba Buena Center for the Arts: Ken Foster, Joel Shepard Howard Zack Steven Zipperstein

The Conversation Continues

ALl YEAR ROUND Join SFJFF throughout the year for screenings, sneak previews, special events, educational and online programs. SNEAK PEEKS OF HOT NEW FILMS SFJFF invites supporters and friends to occasional sneak preview screenings throughout the year. Recent offerings include Breaking Upwards, $9.99, Holy Rollers, and the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man. Join the Jewish Film Forum (see page 43) and sign up for our monthly E-News at sfjff.org to be notified about these private screenings. CO-PRESENTATIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS SFJFF co-presents Jewish-themed films year round with other film festivals and arts organizations. From Frameline to the San Francisco International Film Festival to special partnerships with the Israeli Consulate and the Contemporary Jewish Museum, SFJFF is proud to promote great Jewish films with our Bay Area colleagues all year.

SENIOR AND TEEN PROGRAMS SFJFF’s year-round programs include SFJFF Presents (our “Mitzvah Series”), which offers free screenings to senior communities, and the innovative teen filmmaking program The New Jewish Filmmaking Project, produced by Citizen Film (read more about NJFP on page 30).

MONTHLY SCREENINGS ANNOUNCING MORE JEWISH GANGSTER FILMS! Tough Guys: Images of Jewish Gansters in Film, funded by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (see page 7), continues this fall with four more films at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as part of our SFJFF@YBCA program. First in the series is Eight Men Out, by John Sayles, screening October 3. Stay tuned for detailed SFJFF@YBCA or SFJFF@JCC EAST BAY program and ticket info at www.sfjff.org. Better yet, sign up for our e-mail newsletter at www.sfjff.org. SFJFF@JCC EAST BAY We’re bringing quality Jewish film programs to the ‘other side’ of the bridge this year, with a series of screenings at the JCC East Bay in Berkeley continuing in the fall.

ONLINE RESOURCES SFJFF.ORG offers a wealth of online resources, including a searchable archive of over 1,200 SFJFF titles, teacher curricula, user reviews and recommendations, free online shorts, and much more. In just one year, more than 500,000 people from around the world have viewed our monthly online shorts. To watch free short films online, curated by SFJFF, or explore the archives, visit www.sfjff.org.

For the latest on year round events, online resources and more, sign up to receive semi-monthly e-newsletters at www.sfjff.org.

thank you San Francisco Jewish Film Festival extends a heartfelt thanks to all of our generous donors. PRESENTING SPONSORS

30 th Anniversary Festival Sponsor Wells Fargo Opening Night Sponsor Lela and Gerry Sarnat Closing Night Sponsor The Bonnie and Marty Tenenbaum Foundation

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BUSINESS AND COMMUNITY SPONSORS

American Jewish World Service Consulate General of Israel, Pacific Northwest Region Craig Harrison’s Expressions of Excellence! TM Crane Pest Control German Consulate General The Israel Center of the Jewish Community Federation Jonah Hershowitz, Licensed Acupuncturist, San Francisco Acupuncture Group Kletter Law Firm Latham & Watkins LLP Romanian Cultural Institute in New York Schoenberg Family Law Group P.C. Women’s Interfaith Dialogue on the Middle East Zaentz Media Center MEDIA SPONSORS

7x7 Magazine ABC 7/KGO–TV East Bay Express The Forward Heeb Magazine indieWIRE KALW 91.7 FM KQED Public Broadcasting San Francisco Bay Guardian SF Station Yelp.com Zeek Magazine IN-KIND SPONSORS

Air Berlin Alpha Cine Ben & Jerry’s Haight Ashbury Betty Zlatchin Catering Bolani East & West Gourmet Food Brandvia Alliance Inc. Café DuNord / Swedish American Hall Catch Restaurant Continental Caterers

Delancey Street Delicate Production Dolby FedEx Firewood Cafe Fork & Spoon Catering and Events Misha Frid Goorin Brothers, Inc Hagafen Cellars of Napa Valley Hartmann Studios InTicketing IZZE Beverage Company La Mediterranee livingroom\events Marketing by Storm Melons Catering and Events Mende Design Meyer Sound Peet’s Coffee & Tea Philo Television Savoy Events See’s Candy Special Agent Productions Susan Drell Creative Design Sweet Jo’s Tsar Nicoulai Villa Florence IN-KIND CONTRIBUTORS

Amba Cruzan Rum Distillery No. 209 Doll’s Kitchen DVD Copycat Effen Vodka Espresso Subito Extreme Pizza Flying Falafel Galant Foods/ Paramount Piroshki Galaxy Desserts Grand Bakery Guittard Chocolate Company Have Your Cake The Kitchen Table Lovesticks, Inc. Maker’s Mark Kentucky Bourbon Miller’s East Coast West Delicatessen Montibella Sausage Sauza Tequila Schmaltz Brewing Company Semifreddi’s That Takes the Cake Three-D Spirits /REDRUM Tommy’s Original Margarita Trader Joe’s

Gifts of $100 or more received between May 15, 2009 and May 15, 2010 are listed below. For information on how you can support SFJFF, please contact the development department at 415.621.0556, x305 or kerri@sfjff.org

INDIVIDUAL DONORS

Visionary Circle: Benefactors Anonymous All Voices Welcome Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation Jane Gottesman and Geoffrey Biddle Laszlo N. Tauber Family Foundation Gale Mondry and Bruce Cohen Lela and Gerry Sarnat Bonnie and Marty Tenenbaum Visionary Circle: Directors Anonymous Deborah Blank Denis Bouvier The Coliver Family Michael Ehrenzweig Frederick Hertz Victor and Lorraine Honig Sasha and Irina Kovriga Hannah Kranzberg Ray Lifchez Vera and Harold S. Stein, Jr. Executive Producers Dana Doron Phyllis Friedman Linda and Sanford Gallanter Carl and Gay Grunfeld George and Doris Krevsky Fred Levin and Nancy Livingston, The Shenson Foundation Pam Rorke Levy Alan Ramo and Leslie Rose Reva and David Logan Foundation Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman Dan Wohlfeiler Producers Anonymous Ronald Abileah and Marlene Winograd Orit Atzmon Michael Bien Ronald Blatman and Emerald Yeh Sandee Blechman and Steven Goldberg Sara Bolder and Jim LeBrecht Eva Chernov Lokey Diana Cohen and Bill Falik William B. Dickey Irwin and Concepcion Federman Anne Germanacos Annelise Goldberg and Aaron Roland Natalie Gubb and David Arpi Laurie Rice-Hall and Timothy Hall R. Valerie Joseph Virginia King and Stuart Rickey Wendy and Howard Kleckner Gloria and Hans Kolbe-Saltzman

Linda Kurtz Adrienne Leder David and Julie Levine Greta Livingston Reed Maltzman and Jennifer Gosselin Miriam Mondry Richard Nagler and Sheila Sosnow Dr. Raquel H. Newman Sara Newman John and Lisa Pritzker Susan Reinhold Mark Reisman Paul Resnick and Joan Karlin Sandy Rosenberg and Carolyn Cavalier Rosenberg Alan and Susan Rothenberg Scott Rubin and Stephen Moore Samuel Salkin Joan Sarnat and David Hoffman Edward and Liliane Schneider Peter L. Stein Barry and Marjorie Traub The Ullman Foundation Marilyn and Murry Waldman Carol and Terry Winograd Patrons Anonymous Liki and Joe Abrams Robert and Judith Aptekar Ralph and Eileen Battat David and Rachel Biale Shosh Blachman and Joel Biatch Sherry Brown Pamela Burdman Larry and Becky Burgheimer Bonnie Burt and Mark Liss Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Caston Yvette Chalom and Paul Fogel Rick and Roberta Cummings Susan David Norman Dishotsky Hal Fischer Bruce Fodiman Shelley J. Friedman and Tania Lowenthal Penelope Goldsmith Jan Goodman and Maggie Riddle Sara Grunstein, Rob Waters and Nadav Lev Allyson Halpern and Dan Cohen Beth Harris Hoenninger Craig and Deborah Hoffman Esther and Mark Hudes Nancy Igdaloff Donna A. Korones Adele and Mark Lieberman Rivka Livni Sanford and Dawn Margolin Alan Mark and Jeffrey Fraenkel Eldad and Charlotte Matityahu

Elena Moser and Janet Linder Laura Murra Alec Pauluck Rachel Pfeffer Toby and Robert Rubin Alice and Bill Russell-Shapiro Peter Samis and Mary Ratcliff Hagar Scher and Owen Levin Naomi Seidman Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg Joel Spolin and Margot Parker Roselyne Swig Laura Tow Alexandra Wall Robert Weston Diane Wexler and Bruce Beron Friends Anonymous Dick Berman Robert Brody and Andrea Jacoby Alan Burckin and Carol Olmert Richard Burt Emily Campbell Katherine Catlos and Christi Azevedo Lisa and Matthew Chanoff David desJardins and Nancy Blachman Gail Dolgin Eleanor and Albert Fraenkel Jack Gardner and Candy Rupp Michael Geschwind Susan Goldstein and Andy Kivel Alayne and Alan Greenwald Rebecca Harris Stephanie and Rudy Hoffman Beth and Jim Hornthal Alan Kates Ron and Barbara Kaufman Seth and Sharon Kaufman Ilene Levinson and Rem Van Tijen Janet Linder and Elena Moser Barry Lynch David Malman Lawrence Marshall Barbara Meislin Gary and Cathy Meyer Susan Moldaw James Newman and Jane Ivory Doug Okun and Eric Ethington Steven Rosenberg Penny Rosenwasser Susan Rutberg Irving Saraf Scott Seaman Judy and Lee Shulman Marcia and Gary Shrago Victor Silverman Joanie Silverstein Lisa Spiegel Dena Stein Reesa Tansey and Gary Greenfield Jen and Adam Traeger-Hirschfelder Mark Warnick Ilene Weinreb and Sam Mesnick Constance Wolf and Clara Basile Bruce Wolfe Gerald Wolfe Richard and Sue Wollack

Barbara and Howard Wollner Steven Zipperstein Associates Anonymous (3) Janet Adelman Jessica Alexandra Matt and Marcia Allen Jacqueline Annes Ann Gabor Arancio and Remo Arancio Irina and Boris Auerbuch Dan Aufhauser Charna Ball Deborah Banks and Randy Porter Dan Barki Robin Barnett Rhonda Barovsky Murray and Carole Batt Rosyland and Robert Bauer Sheila and Murray Baumgarten Wendy Bear Joseph and Joyce Behar Anna Berger and Thad Kusmierski Barbara Berk Leyna Bernstein Sandra Blair Deborah and Martin Bloch Sharon and Theodore Block Judith Bloom Dr. Susan E. Boxer Alice Boyarin David and Eva Bradford David and Suzanne Broad Eleanor Bronner Violet Brooks Martin and Geraldine Brownstein Jerome and Gloria Burke Rita Karuna Cahn Richard Caplin Debra Chasnoff John Cillag Sol Coffino Richard Cohen Glenn Davis and James Takagi Louis and Barbara De Groot Ann and Ross Dehovitz Susan Diamond Stuart Dick and Joseph Sieger David Donner Gayle Donsky and Morton Stein Eleanor Drey Richard and Robin Edwards Trish Elliot Carolyn Epstein Tamara Fagin Netta Fedor Myra and Jerry Feiger Richard Fikes and Barbara Blatner-Fikes Donald Fink Charles and Leah Fisher Nancy Fishman and Nina Haft Alan Foss Abe and Suzanne Froman Velia and Philip Frost Arthur and Beatrice Gilbert Barry and Elaine Gilbert Candice Gold

Jane Goldberg Emanuel and Diane Goldman Jameson Goldner Meredith Goldsmith Rick and Susanna Goldsmith Diane Goldstein Randy Goldstein Elizabeth Greene Sheldon and Judy Greene Ralph and Marsha Guggenheim Adam Gutride Robert Gutterman Sara Haber Richard and Julie Harris Louis Harrison Marilyn Hersh Barry Herstein Eric Hertzberg Howard Hoffman Deborah Hoffmann and Frances Reid Lorri and Irving Holzberg Francie Hornstein Florence Hurwitt Annette Insdorf Lois and Jerome Jacobs Becky Jenkins Carole Joffe Alice Kahn Linda Kalinowski Natalie Kaniel Susan Karp Ronald and Tobye Kaye Lisa Kellman Toni King Alice Kisch Beryl and Leonard Levine Sharon Linker Carrie and Ronald Ludwig Arlene Lurie Susan and Jon Mall Lawrence Marshall Nadine May Gail Meblin Leslie Miessner Patricia and David Munro Lenore Naxon Dalia Nevo Zeese Papanikolas Marlene Perl Joan and Allen Perlof Ditsa and Alex Pines Karen Platt Janis Plotkin Norman Postone Paula Pretlow Amy Rassen Ruth Reffkin Avi Rose Maureen and Paul Roskoph Sylvia Sabel Tom and Jill Sampson Marc Sapir George and Dorothy Saxe Elizabeth Schainbaum Karen Schiller Norman Schlossberg Janet Schneider and Andrew Kahn Ursula Schulte

Andrew Schwartz Cindy Shamban Brad Shapiro Ellie Shapiro Barry and Esther Sherman Heather Silverman Jane and Benjamin Simon Sheila Simon Leonard Simpson and Donnie Angel Igor Sinyak Barry Sitkoff Bob Skinkle and Felix VegaÂ Rahel Smith Marc Snyder Ceevah and Irwin Sobel Sharman and Gary Spector-Angel Joan Sperans Michael and Victoria Stone Sanford Tandowsky Catherine Trimbur and Mal Burnstein Susan Tubbesing and Sarah Nathe Donald Ungar Kevin Waldman Mal Warwick Richard Weiner and Susan Inbaek Marilyn and Raymond Weisberg Harriet Weiss David Weissman Ruth White and Robert White Marcy Whitebook and Carl Price Diane Wolf and Frank Hirtz Marilyn and Irving Yalom Jon Zimman FOUNDATION AND GOVERNMENT SUPPORT

Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation Bernard Osher Jewish Philanthropies Foundation Charles H. Revson Foundation Columbia Foundation Common Counsel Foundation Gaia Fund Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund Jewish Community Endowment Fund of San Francisco Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties Jim Joseph Foundation Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund Nathan Cummings Foundation National Endowment for the Arts Richard & Rhoda Goldman Fund Righteous Persons Foundation San Francisco Foundation Tides Foundation Walter and Elise Haas Fund William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

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we have a lot of memories of 1980â&#x20AC;Ś

The founding of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival Is our favorite!

Celebrate 30 meMorable years, and prepare for 30 more, By joining the Jewish Film Forum Joining the Jewish Film Forum can save you money on year-round and Festival screenings, while marking the occasion of the founding of the original, largest and (we’re told) most prestigious of now more than 100 Jewish film festivals around the world. Join now and see us through another 30 great years!

Membership Levels and Benefits

$35 BFF@JFF FOR AGES 35 AND UNDER Are you 35 or under? Our new BFF@JFF provides our Best Friends Forever with subscriptions to electronic and print newsletters and early mailing of the annual Festival catalog, plus discounts and special access to young adult-oriented events and online resources, opportunities to hang out with SFJFF staff and filmmakers and more. Check out sfjff.org for up-to-date member benefits and event announcements.

$50 SUPPORTER (BASIC MEMBERSHIP) • E xclusive discounts on Festival tickets and passes (some limits may apply) • SFJFF Catalog mailed early to your home • Advance notice of year-round screenings and early ticket-buying privileges • Subscription to SFJFF E-News and newsletter • Discounts at select partner screenings/events

$100 ASSOCIATE All benefits at the Supporter level plus: • Acknowledgment in the Festival Catalog • Invitations to donors-only sneak previews • Invitations to post-screening Festival party

$250 FRIEND All benefits at the Associate level plus: • DVD of SFJFF’s New Jewish Filmmaking Project • Two tickets to SF Closing Night film and festivities • A voucher redeemable for four free Festival admissions

$500 PATRON All benefits at the Associate level plus: • One premiere All-Festival Pass which includes one admission to SF Opening Night and Closing Night • One additional SF Opening Night and Closing Night ticket • DVD of SFJFF’s New Jewish Filmmaking Project • Invitation to private VIP Festival Preview

$1,000 PRODUCER All benefits at the Associate level plus: • Two premiere All-Festival Passes which include two admissions to SF Opening Night and Closing Night • Invitations to private VIP Festival Preview and the Filmmaker Dinner • DVD of SFJFF’s New Jewish Filmmaking Project and SFJFF’s Curator’s Choice DVD

$2,500 EXECUTIVE PRODUCER All benefits at the Associate level plus: • Three premiere All-Festival Passes which include three admissions to SF Opening Night and Closing Night • Invitations to private VIP Festival Preview, the Filmmaker Dinner and Shabbat Dinner • DVD of SFJFF’s New Jewish Filmmaking Project and SFJFF’s Curator’s Choice DVD • Opportunity for a shared personal film dedication in the Festival catalog • Two seats to your dedicated film in all venues

$5,000 DIRECTOR All benefits at the Associate level plus: • Four premiere All-Festival Passes which include four admissions to SF Opening Night and Closing Night • Invitations to private VIP Festival Preview, the Filmmaker Dinner and Shabbat Dinner • DVD of SFJFF’s New Jewish Filmmaking Project and SFJFF’s Curator’s Choice DVD • Recognition in the Visionary Circle • Opportunity for an exclusive personal film dedication in the Festival catalog • Four seats to your dedicated film in all venues • Opportunity to host private party in SFJFF screening room

To join the Jewish Film Forum, visit us online at www.sfjff.org or call 415.621.0556 ext. 305.

866.558.4253

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WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;RE PROUD TO PLAY A SUPPORTING ROLE.

The Academy extends congratulations to the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival on the occasion of its 30th annual celebration of motion pictures.

www.oscars.org

ww w.sfjff.org 866.558.4253

Wise Guys: Mobsters in the Mishpacha Portraits of American Jewish Gangsters 1900-1945 An Exhibition of Paintings by Artist Pat Hamou In association with the San Francisco Jewish Film Festivalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 30th Anniversary program on Jewish gangster films, the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco presents a special exhibition of paintings by artist Pat Hamou. Inspired by the accidental art of vintage mug shots and the dark charms of colorful characters, Hamou has created dozens of works focusing on the brief history of the Jewish Gangster â&#x20AC;&#x201C; like the portrait of gangsters Harry Horowitz and Louis Rosenberg, pictured here. Pat Hamou is an illustrator and graphic artist currently living in Montreal, Canada. Using archival images as a springboard, he creates intricate, colorful and textured pen and ink and watercolor drawings that reflect a bygone era while bringing new life to them.

June 15-September 15, 2010 @ JCCSF Katz Snyder Gallery 3200 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94118

Visit www.jccsf.org for details.

PAY IT FORWARD: Support our sponsors! For 30 years, SFJFF has relied on the generosity of its In-Kind Sponsors who provide donations of invaluable goods and services. We've listed them on page 40 and you can also ďŹ nd them on our website www.sfjff.org. Next time you need a meal, a DVD, a glass of wine, a cup of coffee, a lawyer, a room or myriad other life necessities, support the folks who support your favorite Jewish Film Festival!

TICKET INFOrMATION ticket pricing

general ticket info

REGULAR PROGRAMS

Jewish Film Forum (JFF) Member General Public Seniors (65 and older)/Students w/ ID

HOW CAN I BUY TICKETS?

$10.00 $12.00 $10.50

Online: Phone: Toll Free:

$9.00 $11.00

Box office opens for JFF Members on June 22, 2010 Box Office opens to the general public June 25, 2010 No ticket required for free screenings For Questions and/or information please call 415.621.0523 (Mon.–Fri., 10am–5pm)

MATINEES (Mon.-Thurs., up to and including 4pm)

JFF Members General Public

SPECIAL PROGRAMs

www.sfjff.org 415.256.TIXX (8499) 866.55.TICKETS (866.558.4253) Monday–Friday, 9am–5pm

SF Opening Night Film at Castro and Bash at Swedish American Hall

Cocktail reception JFF Members General Public

TICKET DELIVERY

$65.00 $75.00

Tickets can be printed at home, mailed or picked up at Will Call. Mailing charges apply. There is no charge for print-at-home or Will Call. Orders received less than three weeks prior to the screening will be held at Will Call—valid ID required.

$25.00 $30.00

RUSH LINE

SF Opening Night film only

JFF Members General Public SF Closing Night Celebration & Film

JFF Members General Public

$22.00 $25.00

Berkeley Opening Night & After-Film Part y

JFF Members General Public

$22.00 $25.00

SILENT FILM WITH LIVE score (SF): HUNGRY HEARTS

JFF Members General Public

$12.00 $15.00

866.558.4253

ww w.sfjff.org

OPENING NIGHT SCREENING/PARTY: SPECIAL NEW TIME!

To celebrate our 30th Anniversary in style, this year Opening Night will be on Saturday, July 24, 2010. Festivities start with the Opening Night Screening, followed directly afterwards by the Opening Night Party. Box Office will be open at the Castro Theatre for ticket pick-up. Please allow extra time for Will Call on opening night. SPECIAL TICKET PACKAGES

$195.00 $225.00

One pass is good for all shows at all theatres – including Opening and Closing Night films, parties and special programs. Early-entrance line reserved for pass holders. MUST ARRIVE and be in line 20 minutes prior to show time. Pass does not guarantee seating if late arrival. Reel Pass

$40.00

The Reel Pass is a reel deal if you’re 25 or younger! One pass is good for all shows at all theatres – including Opening and Closing Night films and special programs. Early-entrance line reserved for pass holders. Proof of age required. See “the fine print” for restrictions. DISCOUNT 10-FLIX VOUCHER PACKS

Members (limit 2 per member) General Public

$90.00 $100.00

10-Flix Voucher Packs include 10 ticket vouchers that can be redeemed for regular-priced tickets of your choice (not good for Special Programs). 10-Flix Voucher Packs purchased online take the form of 10 codes emailed to the purchaser. Each code is good for one ticket. 10-Flix Voucher Packs purchased via telephone or at the physical box office can take the form of physical vouchers, each printed with a code good for one ticket, or simply a list of codes emailed or otherwise provided to the purchaser at the purchaser’s discretion. Please note: 10-Flix Vouchers cannot guarantee tickets to sold-out shows, so redeem early to ensure ticket availability.

MEMBERS FIRST!

Pre-sales for JFF Members start on June 22, 2010 ! Become a member of the Jewish Film Forum (JFF) with a contribution of $50 or more and receive special discounts and invitations to year-round events, and have a voice in shaping the future of independent film. To join, go to jewishfilmforum.sfjff.org. If you are a JFF Member, please have your name and membership code available when ordering. Limit two (2) discount tickets per screening.

THE FINE PRINT

All Festival Pass

JFF Members General Public

A line for rush tickets will form outside the venue starting one hour prior tsho time. Available rush tickets are sold on a first-come, first-served basis. NO DISCOUNTS APPLY. CASH ONLY. 10-Flix Vouchers not valid for rush tickets.

We are unable to refund, exchange or substitute tickets, including tickets redeemed from 10-Flix Vouchers. All programs are subject to change. Sometimes for reasons beyond our control, screenings must be changed, substituted, rescheduled or canceled. If a screening is canceled, simply return your ticket to the box office within 48 hours of screening date to exchange for a different screening or for a refund. All processing fees are non-refundable. SFJFF is not responsible for lost, stolen, forgotten or damaged tickets, or tickets misdirected by the post office. If you experience delivery problems at your address, please choose Will Call. There are no refunds for tickets that are not picked up. If ordering in advance, tickets will automatically be placed at Will Call for ID verification. All programs are general seating, except for Opening Night at the Castro Theatre. All tickets and passes are subject to a processing fee. For tickets the processing fee is $1.50/ticket for up to $6. For passes, the fee is $6/pass, and $6/ 10-flix pack. There is an additional $1.50/order and $.50/ticket charge for telephone orders. Please arrive and be in line 20 minutes prior to showtime. Ticket or pass does not guarantee seating. SECURITY POLICY—PLEASE READ

Bags not permitted in theatres. Please arrive early for screenings to provide ample time for security checks. All purses and bags are subject to inspection prior to admittance to theatres. Large bags, briefcases, backpacks, shopping bags, etc., will not be permitted in theatres. PLEASE DO NOT BRING SUCH ITEMS WITH YOU.

production staff Peter L. Stein Executive Director

Myra Feiger Community Outreach Coordinator

Brad Robinson House Manager

Owen Levin Administrative Director

Gino Caputi Palo Alto House Manager

Jay Rosenblatt Program Director, SFJFF30

Jennifer Brown Meaghan Curran Evan Haigh Interns

Allyson Halpern Development Director

Jennie Adler Volunteer Coordinator

Hal Rowland Technical Director

Joshua Moore Associate Programmer

Ninfa Dawson Alysanne Taylor Volunteer Coordinators Marin

Mitchell Vaughn Box Office Manager

415 Productions, San Francisco Doug Domonkos Chris Purvis Ben Rigby Web Design/Development

Alison Cartwright Photographer

Kerri Gawryn Development & Membership Associate Shira Zucker Manager, Marketing/PR Doug Blakely Administrative Coordinator Ada Chester Bookkeeper Chris Smith Digital Archive Coordinator Monica Reid Hospitality Coordinator Marketing by Storm Cara Storm Marketing Consultant K Sato Publications & Website Ani Klose Publicity Coordinator Larsen Associates Karen Larsen Leo Wong Jane Gould Festival Publicists

Lalita Noam Production Manager

2010 SFJFF TRAILER

In-Ticketing Box Office

Robert Avila Copy Editor

Mario Grijalva Director

Alex Cantin Print Traffic Coordinator

Benjamin Mullins Producer

p.s. Printsmart Donna Steger Diean Halaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ufia Print Broker

Special Agent Productions, LLC Animation Mike Overbeck Animation Director Amy Capen Animation Executive Producer Jason Rufuss Sewell and Wesley James Steck II Music / Sound Design David White Sponsor Reel David Gutierez Brian Freeman John Bouvier Hospitality Assistants

Margot Breier Bonnie Burt Myra Feiger Ed Feldman Max Goldberg Deborah Hoffmann Marcia Jarmel Vivian Kleiman Donna Korones Jan Krawitz Valerie Lapin-Ganley Sarah Lefton Ron Levaco Rozlyn Levaco

David Liu Alon Raab Shevi Rosenfeld Ken Schneider Harvey Schwartz Jennifer Schwartz Mark Valentine Lauren Vanett Marlene Velasco-Begue Diane Wolf Pre-Screeners 2010 Nancy K. Fishman Deborah Kaufman Tom Luddy Janis Plotkin Program Consultants Mende Design Jeremy Mende Bryn Bowman James Provenza Cynthia Garcia Creative Direction and Design Debbie Berne David White Additional Graphic Design Nancy K. Fishman Guest Curator, Tough Guys Program Joshua Moore Jay Rosenblatt Peter L. Stein Program Catalog Editors

PLAN YOUR FESTIVAL film title

date

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time / runtime

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Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 107 San Francisco, CA

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 145 Ninth Street, Suite 200 San Francisco, CA 94103

mission statement The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival promotes awareness, appreciation and pride in the diversity of the Jewish people. Festival programs are meant to create community and strengthen consciousness of Jewish identity, history and culture; provide a dynamic and inclusive forum for exploration of and dialogue about the Jewish experience; and encourage independent filmmakers working with Jewish themes. (More on SFJFF, its values and programs at www.sfjff.org)

9 Years Later

Escape from Suburbia

The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground 5

Scarface

Ahead of Time

Father’s Footsteps

Lepke

Seltzer Works

Amos Oz: The Nature of Dreams 12

A Film Unfinished

Long Distance

A Small Act

Anita

Grace Paley: Collected Shorts

Lost Paradise

The “Socalled” Movie

Gruber’s Journey

Maurice at the World’s Fair

Stalin Thought of You

Guided Tour

Mrs. Moscowitz and the Cats

Surrogate

Half-Remembered Stories

My Perestroika

Surviving Hitler: A Love Story

My So Called Enemy

Te Extraño (I Miss You)

Arab Labor: Season 1, Episode 10

Arab Labor: Season 2

Army of Crime

Baabaa the Sheep Sets Out to Bring Love to the World

Bena

Broken Time

Budrus

Bugsy

Dor

Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades

Hungry Hearts

Ilusiones Ópticas

The Orange

Tom

Ingelore

Patriot

Utopia in Four Movements

Jaffa

Perfect Mother

War Against the Weak

Perin’s Dual Identity

What About Me?

Protektor

The Wolberg Family

A Room and a Half

The Worst Company in the World 28

Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story

Jews in Shorts: Focus on Israeli Narratives

King of the Roaring 20’s – 15

The Story of Arnold Rothstein 20

Saviors in the Night

Sayed Kashua – Forever Scared 24

You Can Dance

You Won’t Miss Me