An immersive experience celebrating the richness of Jewish and Israeli life, culture, and history through the magic of film.

JCC Rockland’s International Jewish Film Festival uses film to provide cultural understanding and enrichment, to spark awareness and discourse among all communities in Rockland County. The primary goal of the Festival is to build bridges between the Jewish community and all Rocklanders and their neighbors. It has grown over the years to be one of the largest, most anticipated, and well respected Cultural Arts events in the tri-state area. We're thrilled to be back in person & better than ever!

Festival Schedule:

March 21, 2024

7:00 - 9:00 PM: Remembering Gene Wilder

Gene Wilder, the prolific actor and screenwriter, is known all over the world for his endearing roles in classic films such as “The Producers”, “Young Frankenstein”, “Blazing Saddles”, “Silver Streak”, “The Frisco Kid”, and “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” With rare never-before-seen home videos and memorable scenes from our favorite Gene Wilder films, the documentary reveals intimate insights detailing his life and career with many astonishing surprises.

Guest Speaker: Alan Zweibel

Guest Speaker: Rob Frank, Director of Remembering Gene Wilder

March 26, 2024

7:00 - 9:00 PM: Four Winters: A Story of Jewish Partisan Resistance and Bravery in WWII

Torn from their families by the ravages of Hitler’s armies, men and women, many barely in their teens, escaped into the forests, banding together in partisan brigades; engaging in treacherous acts of sabotage, blowing up trains, burning electric stations, and attacking armed enemy headquarters. Against extraordinary odds, over 25,000 Jewish partisans courageously fought back against the Nazis and their collaborators from deep within the forests of WWII’s Belarus, Ukraine and Eastern Europe. The last surviving partisans relive their journey in FOUR WINTERS, sharing their stories of resistance. Director Julia Mintz shines a spotlight on their transformation from young innocents raised in closely knit Jewish communities and families, to becoming fierce partisan soldiers with enduring hope, grit, magnificent courage and deep humanity.

Featuring the photography of Faye Schulman, partisan photographer clad in her signature leopard coat, and through a fusion of inspiring and powerful first-person interviews with stunning archival footage, FOUR WINTERS uncovers secrets held for lifetimes, revealing a heartfelt narrative of heroism, determination and resilience.

March 28, 2024

7:00 - 9:00 PM: The Story of Annette Zelman

Annette Zelman is a Jewish art student living in Nazi-occupied Paris in the early 1940s. She and her Catholic classmate Jean fall in love and dream of building a life together. Despite the couple’s bond, Jean’s parents oppose the match and Jean’s father, Hubert, reports Annette to the Gestapo. Soon after, a guilt-ridden Hubert risks his own life to save Annette’s, but he’s too late and Annette is deported to Auschwitz. The Story of Annette Zelman is a tale of love and resistance that plumbs the depths of human passion, prejudice, and betrayal. The film is based on actual events told in the book Dénoncer les Juifs Sous l’Occupation (Informing on Jews during the Occupation) by Laurent Joly.

March 31, 2024

7:00 - 9:00 PM: Less Than Kosher

A delightful musical comedy about modern Jewish life in Toronto, that feels like a cross between Shiva Baby and The Jazz Singer. Modern Jewish wit meets Hebrew Electro-Pop in this hilarious feature which won the Audience Award at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival.

At 20, Viv was a promising young singer. At 30, her failing music career has forced her back into her mother's basement. But when this self proclaimed Bad Jew lands ***-backwards into a job as a Cantor at her family's synagogue, she's thrown into a wild ride of illicit affairs, drug trips, tense family drama, self discovery and some serious Jewish bops.

April 2, 2024

7:00 - 9:00 PM: The Narrow Bridge

THE NARROW BRIDGE is a searching journey into the souls of four people who, after searing pain, develop strengths they never had before. We watch with wonder as Bushra, Rami, Meytal and Bassam, women and men who lost a child or parent in violent conflict, transform their grief into a bridge for reconciliation.

April 4, 2024

7:00 - 9:00 PM: Outremont and the Hasidim

Outremont and the Hasidim reveals the challenges of accommodating the "Hasidim" - or ultra-Orthodox Jews - in the affluent Montréal borough of Outremont. Some 7,000 Hasidim live in or near this choice neighborhood of Québec's Francophone elite. After settling there more than 70 years ago, the Hasidim are a rapidly growing minority group which today represents about 23% of Outremont's population. This growing presence poses a major challenge for certain members of Outremont's French-speaking Québécois majority which fears the massive influx of a group, which according to some, refuses to integrate.

April 7, 2024

7:00 - 9:00 PM: Julia's Journey

JULIA’S JOURNEY is a story of love, courage & hope. The congregation of Beth Haverim Shir Shalom met Julia and her young son Sasha when they came to Suffern in April 2022 from Ukraine. One year later, they produced a film documenting the relationship that grew, along with JCC Rockland.

JCC Rockland is thrilled to be sharing this incredible story with our community. We are proud and humbled that we were able to play a small but vital role in Julia's Journey.

April 9, 2024

7:00 - 9:00 PM: All About the Levkoviches

The generous but stubborn boxing coach, Tamás gets along well with everyone but his own son. They have not spoken since the boy, Iván moved to Israel and became religious in an orthodox community. When Tamás' beloved wife, Zsuzsa dies unexpectedly, Tamas agrees with his son that he can come and sit the Shiva in his house as long as he brings his grandson, Ariel with him. As past conflicts resurface, they embark on an unexpected journey of self- reflection and reconciliation. Father and son are not just obliged to face their old grievances during the one-week religious mourning but to help Ariel deal with his own grief and his obsession that grandma's spirit is still in the house.

April 11, 2024

7:00 - 9:00 PM: SHTTL

One of the most spellbinding films of the year, Shttl beautifully captures the expansive, multi-character lives and loves of a Yiddish-speaking Jewish village in the Ukraine on the Polish border. Mendele, who has been living a secular life in Kiev, finds himself back in the familiar and comforting world of his shtetl, a vibrant place, brimming with the romance, politics, and intrigue of everyday life, and simmering tensions between tradition and modernity. Set a day before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, this is a world on the precipice of disaster, and the film unspools with our knowledge of the looming terror and does not flinch in depicting the destruction and loss. Writer-director Ady Walter’s debut masterpiece (filmed outside of Kyiv before the present war in Ukraine) was audaciously captured in one single take. The remarkable cast is led by Moshe Lobel (Broadway’s Yiddish revival of Fiddler on the Roof) and consummate character actor Saul Rubinek (Hunters, Unforgiven) who is himself fluent in Yiddish and the son of holocaust survivors. Today, there are no such villages in existence; the production fully reconstructed a traditional ‘Shtetl’ outside of Kyiv, which is planned to be turned into a museum.

April 14, 2024

7:00 - 9:00 PM: The Catskills

The Catskills" is a feature-length documentary film on the rise and fall of the Borscht Belt.

With a trove of lost-and-found archival footage and a cast of characters endowed with the gift of gab, "The Catskills" journeys into the storied mountain getaway north of New York City that served as refuge for Jewish immigrants fleeing poverty as well as a lavish playground for affluent Jewish families.

As bungalow colony proprietors, guests, waiters, comedians, hoteliers, and beauticians share colorful tales of Catskill farms, boarding houses, and luxury resorts, they paint a picture of vibrant American Jewish life and culture in the 20th century.

Stand-up comedians share their best shtick while former waiters, entertainers, and dance instructors recount tales of the family-run resorts and bungalows that inspired films like Dirty Dancing. Featuring home movies, publicity photos, postcards, and menus, this time capsule provides an overview of Jewish immigration to New York going back to the early twentieth century. Director Lex Gillespie (The Mamboniks, SFJFF 2019) maps the development of the vacation destination, from a refuge for working-class Jews seeking a respite from poverty in overcrowded New York City tenements to a lavish summer playground for the affluent.

April 16, 2024

7:00 - 9:00 PM: Rabbi on the Block

Tamar Manasseh, the charismatic rabbi and community activist from the south side of Chicago,wants African Americans and Jews to become closer allies. With one foot firmly in each of these two communities, Black Jews like Tamar are the natural bridge to help overcome decades of fear, misunderstanding, and lack of communication.

?Rabbi on the Block Is a feature-length documentary film that will show how Manasseh brings together Jews of all colors and is building bridges that will serve as the foundation for a revitalized alliance of African Americans and Jews while creating a new style of activist Judaism that takes the religion out of the synagogue and into the streets.

April 18, 2024

7:00 - 9:00 PM: No Name Restaurant

ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT. To save the synagogue of the once largest Jewish community in the world from being shut down, Ben, an ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn Jew visiting Jerusalem, is sent out to be the desperately needed tenth man for the ceremonies of Pesach. Having missed his plane and been kicked off the bus in the Sinai Desert, his last hope is Adel, a grumpy Bedouin looking for his camel. When their car breaks down, it becomes a matter of their very survival. Although rescued by the monks of St. Catherine, Ben is too sick to go on. It is the Bedouin disguised as Ben who is now rushing on towards Alexandria to save the Jewish community.

Fest Date: March 21 - April 18, 2024

Location: Regal Cinemas  - 6201 Fashion Drive Nanuet, NY 10954

Click here for more information.