Enjoy five days of world-class international and independent comedies, dramas, documentaries, and shorts from Israel, Europe, Canada, and the U.S. premiering for the first time in Santa Barbara.

Schedule of Events:

November 6, 2024:

5:00 - 6:00 PM: Opening Night Gala

At the newly remodeled Adam Bronfman JCC

Guests will enjoy a light dinner, drinks, and live entertainment.

7:00 PM: Bliss (Hemda)

Director Shemi Zarhin
Israel | 2024 | 125m | Hebrew, Arabic

A married couple must confront painful truths in this insightful, observational drama from Shemi Zarhin (The Kind Words, TIFF ’15).

Sassi (Sasson Gabay) is more than 20 years older than his wife Effi (Asi Levi) and worried about his declining powers. Surgery has left him seeking treatment for impotence, but Effi insists she’s content with their emotional closeness. In her work as a physical therapist, though, Effi sees every day the link between body and heart. The biggest challenge to their loving relationship has been the gambling debts Sassi’s adult son keeps running up. But the couple’s fragile understanding, compounded by the presence of two young men, introduces new threats.

Their teenage grandson, Omri, returns from living with his father in Europe, at loose ends and clearly in need of guidance. For one thing, he can barely stand to wear a shirt. Then a young patient turns up at the swimming pool where Effi conducts therapy sessions. He comes to confront her about something from their past, something complicated, contested, and clearly painful to them both.

Novelist and filmmaker Shemi Zarhin (The Kind Words, TIFF ’15) brings characteristic insight and observational humour to Bliss. Written and shot before the current war, certain scenes touch lightly on interactions between Jewish and Arab culture and language in Israel.

November 7, 2024:

10:00 AM - 10:30 AM: Coffee and Bagel Breakfast

10:30 AM: Between the Stone and the Flower

Director Roberto Otero Morfa
USA | 69 Minutes | 2024

Between the Stone and the Flower: The Duality of the Conversos chronicles the remarkable odyssey of Genie Milgrom as she embarks on a decades-long quest to uncover her Jewish lineage. Born in Havana, Cuba, and raised in Miami, Genie’s education was steeped in Roman Catholicism, from grade school to university. Despite her upbringing, she carried a persistent sense of disconnection within her Spanish Catholic surroundings. Genie’s story is one of twists and turns, as she confronts the challenging choice to transition from her traditional Catholic family in Spain to embracing Judaism, ultimately opting for an Orthodox path. Her decision sends shockwaves through her family and friends, while her own conviction about her family’s Jewish roots in the Iberian Peninsula centuries prior only deepens.

1:00 PM: J’Accuse

Director Michael D. Kretzmer
UK | 86 Minutes | 2022

The Lithuanian Jewish community was decimated in the Holocaust, when over 220,000 Jews, more than 95% of the Jewish population, were murdered. A key player in the massacre was Lithuanian nationalist Jonas Noreika, who today is revered as a national hero, and protected by the contemporary government’s official policy and infamous Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Centre. In this galvanizing documentary, we follow the experiences of two dissident campaigners: Grant Gochin, whose family was murdered by Noreika; and Silvia Foti, a brave Lithuanian woman fighting for the truth, whose grandfather was Jonas Noreika. Together, the two push against Lithuania’s systemic Holocaust denial in an attempt to bring justice to victims and insist that the truth be told.

4:00 PM: Catskills

Director Lex Gillespie
USA | 2024 | 86 Minutes | English

The Catskills is a humorous and nostalgic tribute to what became affectionately known as the Borscht Belt. Through the lens of stand-up comedians delivering their finest routines and the reminiscences of former waiters, entertainers, and dance instructors, the film captures the essence of the family-run resorts and bungalows that served as the inspiration for iconic films like Dirty Dancing. By piecing together personal anecdotes, home videos, promotional images, postcards, and menus, this cinematic time capsule offers a comprehensive overview of Jewish immigration to New York.

6:30 PM with Panel Discussion: Screams Before Silence

Director Anat Stalinsky
USA | 57 Minutes | 2024

Never-before-heard eyewitness accounts from released hostages, survivors, and first responders.

During the October 7 attacks on Israeli towns and at the Nova Music Festival, women and girls were raped, assaulted, and mutilated. Released hostages have revealed that Israeli captives in Gaza have also been sexually assaulted.

November 8, 2024:

10:00 AM - 10:30 AM: Coffee and Bagel Breakfast

10:30 AM: Telling Nonie

Directors Paz Schwartz & Uriel Sinai

Israel/USA | 52 Minutes | 2023

Tormented by his role in a 1950s Gaza assassination, an introspective elderly Israeli agent seeks redemption by disclosing guilt and seeking reconciliation. At 88, Geizi Tsafrir reflects on his time with Israel’s security agency Shin Bet and the July ‘56 killing, executed with an explosive device, of an Egyptian lieutenant colonel responsible for cross-border attacks. Reuniting with former operatives, unsettling revelations drive him to action. He travels to Los Angeles to meet Nonie Darwish, the daughter of his target, with the hope of easing his troubled conscience. This winner of the Haifa International Film Festival’s Best Israeli Documentary explores intricate emotions, history’s complexities, and the bumpy path toward mutual understanding and forgiveness.

1:30 PM: Echoes of Loss: Eight Days in Israel

Director Rob Mar
USA | 73 Minutes | 2024

Join award-winning filmmaker, Rob Mor, an Israeli-American widower, affectionately known as “DadBob,” as he travels to Israel in the aftermath of the October 7th Terrorist attacks.

Journey alongside Mor as he travels from his home-base in Los Angeles to his homeland of Israel. Set against a backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war and rising global antisemitism, Mor explores his own healing journey after losing his wife, Noel, to ovarian cancer in 2019. Throughout the film, Mor interviews widows, parents, and family members who lost loved ones on October 7th and explores the grief felt by Israelis and Jews worldwide over this past year of turmoil. Bear witness to the enduring power of the human spirit, as the community cries, laughs, and rebuilds together alongside Mor.

3:30 PM: Air War

Director Roy Hornshtein
Israel | 106 Minutes | 2024

A rivalry between two charismatic Israeli air force fighter pilots reaches breaking point on the eve of the six-day war. After single handedly shooting down six Egyptian migs in aerial combat, the young, brash Lt. Ran Nesher is awarded a new assignment: to take over the command of a fighter squadron.

The squadron’s second-in-command, the more methodical and disciplined Lt. Eitan Rom is profoundly threatened by his new reckless Commander who is clearly inexperienced and domineering.

The ongoing power struggle begins to affect the performance of the squadron. however, As their country’s existence hangs in the balance, the two men must learn to work together. It is only then that they are ready to lead their squadron to victory.

5:30 - 6:00 PM: Shabbat Oneg Reception on Stage

Rabbi Blessings

November 9, 2024:

6:30 PM: Kristallnacht Commemoration & Panel

Here Lived

Director Jane Wells
USA | 79 Minutes | 2023

When conceptual artist Gunter Demnig first conceived the idea of laying Stolpersteine (“stumbling stones”) for Roma, Sinti, and disabled victims of National Socialism in his native Germany, he never imagined his project would grow to become the world’s largest decentralized memorial. Today, Stolpersteine have been placed in 30 countries across Europe, and on May 23, 2023, Demnig laid the 100,000th. The Stolpersteine he crafted are, in theory, quite simple: concrete blocks measuring 10 x 10 cm, topped with permanent brass plates that are hand-stamped with the names and fates of victims of Hitler’s reign of terror. The stones are laid into the pavement in front of the last voluntarily chosen residence of those murdered by the Nazis. They are deeply personal and draw attention to individual tragedies. Here Lived charts the development and lasting emotional significance of his project as a remarkable mode of collective healing. This extraordinary tale of resilience, remembrance, and community deeply resonates in this moment. It is a timely and profoundly moving testament to the enduring power of human compassion and solidarity.

November 10, 2024:

9:15 AM - 10:00 AM: Coffee and Bagel Breakfast

10:00 AM: All About the Levkoviches

Director Adam Breier
Hungary | 2024 | 85 Minutes | Hungarian and Hebrew with English subtitles

Told with delightfully mordant humor and a genuine warmth, this appealing domestic story from Hungarian filmmaker Adam Breier follows a Jewish family on the winding path toward reconciliation. Tamas (a gruff but tender Bezerédi Zoltán) is an aging boxing coach in present-day Budapest whose relationship with his son, Ivan (Szabó Kimmel Tamás), has frayed to the point of estrangement. After converting to Orthodox Judaism, Ivan moved to Israel, where he had a son, Ariel (Leo Gagel), whom Tamas has never met. Now, Ivan and Ariel have come back to Budapest for the funeral of Tamas’s wife, forcing father and son to face one another. Breier’s film is masterfully acted and directed, maintaining a perfectly balanced tone between comedy and pathos.

12:30 PM: Shorts Program

The Peacock that Passed Over
Lion of Zion
Girl No. 60427
Ganef
The Woman from Hamburg

3:30 PM: Unspoken

Director Jeremy Borison
USA | 2024 | 91 Minutes | English

Homosexuality wasn’t decriminalized in Germany until over 20 years after World War Two. There were gay men that were liberated from concentration camps and then put straight back into jail to continue the rest of their ‘sentences.’

This shocking piece of information, and the fact that most people have never heard it, is the context behind Unspoken. Noam and Jonah are in the midst of a research project for Jewish History class when they discover this history of persecution they had never heard of in their twelve years of Holocaust education. It’s one thing to not have in-depth knowledge of the Holocaust; it’s another to learn about the subject every year and not hear one mention of the word gay.

6:00 PM: Sabbath Queen

Director Sandi DuBowski
Israel | 105 Minutes | 2024

Sabbath Queen, a feature documentary filmed over 21 years, follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s epic journey as the dynastic heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis including the Chief Rabbis of Israel. He is torn between rejecting and embracing his destiny and becomes a drag-queen rebel, a queer bio-dad and the founder of Lab/Shul—an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation.

Dates: November 6 - 10, 2024

Location:

The New Vic Theatre,
33 West Victoria Street,
Santa Barbara, CA 93101.

Ticket Prices:

All Access Passes: $180
Single Tickets: $18

Buy Tickets

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