Beginning in April of 2024, Rialto Cinemas will team with the JCC to present a monthly film series showcasing a diverse selection of films that celebrate Jewish heritage, culture, and identity.

Festival Schedule:

Tuesday, April 9, 2024

1 & 7pm: Cinema Sabaya

A group of Palestinian and Israeli women attend a video workshop at a small town community center run by Rona (Dana Ivgy, Zero Motivation), a young filmmaker from Tel Aviv, who teaches them to document their lives. As each student shares footage from her home life with the others, their beliefs and preconceptions are challenged and barriers are broken down. The group comes together as mothers, daughters, wives, and women living in a world designed to keep them apart, forming an empowering and lasting bond as they learn more about each other… and themselves…

Tuesday, May 21, 2024

1 & 7pm: Call Me Dancer

Manish is an athletic street dancer from Mumbai, whose working-class parents depend on their only son’s support. When he accidentally walks into an inner-city dance school and encounters a curmudgeonly 70-year-old Israeli ballet master, a hunger develops within him.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024

1 & 7pm: Farewell, Mr. Haffmann

Occupied Paris, 1941: all members of the Jewish community are instructed to come forward and identify themselves to authorities. Dedicated jeweller Joseph Haffmann (Daniel Auteuil), fearing the worst, arranges for his family to flee the city and offers his employee François Mercier (Gilles Lellouche) the chance to take over his store until the conflict subsides. But his own attempts to escape are thwarted, and Haffmann is forced to seek his assistant’s protection. It’s a risky proposition for both men, and one that Mercier’s wife Blanche (a wonderful Sara Giraudeau) is sceptical of.

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

1 & 7pm: Fioretta

History-obsessed Randy Schoenberg (memorably portrayed by Ryan Reynolds in Woman in Gold) brings his reluctant teenage son Joey along for the journey of a lifetime, through Europe and the centuries, to reclaim 500 years of their family story. Along the way, they encounter kings, mystics, and a false messiah — as well as numerous ordinary and extraordinary people who witnessed Europe’s tumultuous past. And the relationship between father and son is forever changed.

Tuesday, August 20, 2024

1 & 7pm: Stay with Us

After three successful years living and working in America, French-Jewish actor and comedian Gad Elmaleh decides to move back home to Paris. He misses his family and friends. Or, at least that’s what Gad tells his loving yet overbearing parents, Régine and David. However, it’s not long before his parents find out the true reason for their son’s return — after a long period of ambivalence towards his own Jewishness, Gad has officially decided to convert to Catholicism.

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

1 & 7pm: Vishniac

From the cosmopolitan streets of pre-war Berlin to the shtetls in Poland and Lithuania to the Princeton offices of Albert Einstein, VISHNIAC takes viewers on a journey, through the lens of one of the foremost photographers of the 20th century. Roman Vishniac is best known for having traversed Eastern Europe from 1935 through 1938, on assignment for the American Joint Distribution Committee, to photograph Jewish life in Eastern Europe. The purpose of the photographs was to raise funds for impoverished Jewish communities.

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

1 & 7pm: Bella! This Woman's Place Is in the House

As Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi lead the nation, they travel a path blazed by several women before them, notably Bella Abzug. In 1970, when the United States was ruled by men, Bella challenged the status quo, running a successful campaign from the streets of Manhattan that elevated her all the way to the halls of Congress. With her trademark hat and Bronx swagger, Bella entered Congress swinging, battling for credit cards for women, equality for the LGBTQ community and trailblazing a path for leadership that reflected the broad diversity of the country.

Fest Date: April 9 - October 15, 2024

Location: Rialto Cinemas - 6868 McKinley Street, Sebastopol, CA 95472

Click here for more information.