When two estranged young sisters— Lenny who stayed in their childhood home to take care of their father, and Mira, who left for a fast new life in Tel Aviv—are reunited, they must come to terms with each other and the circumstances that tore them apart. Love and affection bind the characters and lead them toward fragile redemption.

In 2015, French Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy sought to understand the psychology and culture of those embroiled with ISIS in the Middle East. Travelling with a team of cameramen through Iraqi Kurdistan, he captures an unprecedented view of a war that rages in our own time, and whose stakes are of global importance.

Known for her performances in Aimée and Jaguar and In Darkness, Maria Schrader goes behind the camera to chronicle the years of exile of Stefan Zweig, one of the most widely read German writers of his time.

Born inside the a displaced persons camp in 1945 and sent for adoption in Israel, 70-year-old Izak never knew of his brother, Shep, or his mother, Aida, until an emotionally wrought search leads him to find them both in Canada, unbeknownst to one another, in this thought-provoking story about resilience, compassion and what makes us who we are.

This documentary portrait of a Bulgarian Jewish filmmaker, novelist, partisan warrior, and lifelong revolutionary introduces American viewers to a brilliant and charismatic artist, for whom art became a form of resistance against a series of oppressive and corrupt regimes. Screening with: Stars (Sterne) (Konrad Wolf, 88m).

For five decades the woman they call “The Divine Miss M” forged a path that has taken her from a pineapple canning factory in Honolulu to the highest echelons of Hollywood. The BBC’s Imagine series joins Bette Midler on her journey through the chorus lines of Broadway, the bathhouses and nightclubs of New York City in the 1970s, and to the top of the film industry.

This stunning documentary focuses on women from North Africa and Poland who journeyed to Israel by ship in the 1950s and 1960s and were sent to Dimona, a newly established town in the desert. Intimate conversations are interwoven with stunning archival footage and music of the time.

Encouraged by her mother to celebrate the Jewish High Holidays while volunteering in Ghana, documentary filmmaker Gabrielle Zilkha discovers a little-known Jewish community in rural Sefwi Wiawso where she befriends a man whose family had been practicing Judaism there for centuries. Screening with Kol Nidre #3 (Tatiana McCabe, 4m).

Three Israelis with little in common share one important characteristic: their love for hummus, the tahini and chickpea-based spread that is one of the country’s dietary staples. In this lively and heartfelt documentary, filmmaker Oren Rosenfeld demonstrates how a simple food can help us transcend religious and cultural divides. Screening with Numbers Guy (Vanessa Jung, 33m).

This drama is based on the real-life encounter between the controversial French author Louis-Ferdinand Céline, who was accused of collaborating with the Nazis, and Milton Hindus, a young American Jewish professor, in 1948. Denis Lavant (Holy Motors) brings us into the mind of the great, if deeply troubled, artist.

An intimate biography of the Nobel Prize–winning physicist and chemist. Famous for her study of radioactivity, Marie Curie’s personal life was no less electric. From her trailblazing path through male-dominated academia to her romantic adventures and happy marriage, this Polish film portrays a woman who revolutionized science and followed her own heart.

Enter the world of Ohad Naharin, renowned choreographer and artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company. Eight years in the making, this high-energy documentary immerses the audience in the creative process behind Batsheva’s unique performances.

Two sisters—one an introverted classical musician, the other a combative magazine editor—try to unravel a disturbing wartime mystery as they realize that freedom from the shackles of the past requires painful sacrifices. This gripping drama from the director of The Matchmaker is inspired by true events.

In 2005, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch in Jerusalem was accused of selling properties to Jewish Settlers. He was deposed and confined to his room in the Old City for eleven years. Documentarian Danae Elon (Another Road Home, P.S. Jerusalem) forges a special relationship with the Patriarch to unravel the twisted story.

Afflicted with a rare genetic disease, nine-year-old Nur has only one chance of survival: crossing the border from Gaza into Israel, where doctors are capable of performing a liver transplant. This documentary from filmmaker Nili Tal (Ukraine Brides, Etched in My Body, Sixty and the City) demonstrates the transformative power of humanity and hope. Screening with: My Travels with Oliver (Laurel Chiten, 7m).

Set in 1937, Scarred Hearts, inspired by Romanian author Max Blecher’s novel, centers on a young intellectual in a sanatorium on the Black Sea coast. Despite his physical condition, Emmanuel encourages his fellow patients to live life fully, listen to jazz, and throw the occasional drunken party. Meanwhile, outside the sanatorium walls, fascism is on the rise.

Shalom Rabin is a film diary that follows director Amos Gitai as he journeys to Washington, Cairo, Gaza, and Jerusalem at the time of the Oslo Accords. With footage taken from Gitai’s exclusive archive, it includes excerpts from a profoundly moving, extended interview with Yitzhak Rabin and some of the leaders of the time shortly before Rabin’s assassination in November 1995.

Angel Wagenstein wrote this drama based on what happened to him during the Holocaust in the Balkans, shedding light on the Sephardic experience. In a secluded Bulgarian village in 1943, Walter, an artist and sergeant in the Wehrmacht, lives an almost idyllic life far away from the war. When a transit camp is set up for Jews arriving from Greece, he must decide whether to listen to their appeals for help.

An HIV-positive gay man living in London, Israeli expat Saar finds refuge in the British capital from the religious kibbutz where he grew up. Saar and his fellow members of the London Gay Men’s Chorus provide a glorious soundtrack for this documentary about the necessity of forgiveness and the power of home.

Triumphs and Laments documents one of contemporary artist William Kentridge’s most ambitious and controversial projects: a colossal frieze along the banks of the Tiber river in Rome portraying the glories and tragedies of the Eternal City that was commissioned in the summer of 2016.

An accident during a bar mitzvah celebration leads to a gendered rift in an Orthodox community in Jerusalem in this rousing, good-hearted tale about women speaking truth to patriarchal power. Emil Ben-Shimon’s feature debut is a warm portrait of a community seeking to balance protocol with practical and progressive values.

A collection of five short films transport us from 1930s Czechoslovakia to a contemporary Tel Aviv museum.

Join us for Mel Brooks’s hilarious directorial debut, starring Zero Mostel as the down-on-his-luck theatrical producer Max Bialystock, and Gene Wilder as his timid accountant Leo Bloom. The Producers won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

A poster exhibition in the Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery at the Walter Reade Theater pays tribute to the comedy legends Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, including posters for comedy classics like The Producers (screening Jan. 19), Blazing Saddles and other favorites.

On view in the Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery.

A compilation of film and television clips from some of Mostel and Wilder’s best moments on camera.

On loop from noon to 9pm daily in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, except during other programming.

This naturalistic portrait of working-class Prague was among the strongest Czech films of the 1920s. The international cast includes Valeska Gert, typically uninhibited in a featured role as the provocative waitress who takes up with the movie’s loutish protagonist. This new digital restoration features an electronic musical score by Czech musician Jan Burian.

Loosely based on the 1928 Brecht-Weill musical, itself adapted from John Gay’s 18th-century The Beggar’s Opera, G. W. Pabst’s film features several members of the original Berlin cast—including Lotte Lenya as Pirate Jenny and Ernst Busch as the Street Singer—as well as Valeska Gert in the role of heroine Polly Peachum’s mother.

Remarkably spry in her mid-eighties, Valeska Gert holds forth on her life and even recreates a number of her dances in Volker Schlöndorff’s documentary portrait. She recounts her eventful life, from her performances as the self-described “Grotesque Dancer” in 1920s Berlin, Moscow, and Paris, to her later years. Screening with: Pett and Pott: A Fairy Story of the Suburbs (Alberto Cavalcanti, 32m).

Mel Gordon, professor emeritus of theater arts at the University of California, Berkeley, speaks about self-described “Grotesque Dancer” Valeska Gert, who defied all contemporary classification and was considered one of the most inventive and original entertainers of the Weimar Era. The lecture includes rare illustrations and film clips.

Tomer Heymann leads a behind-the-scenes master class on documentary filmmaking. Together with his brother, Barak, he has directed a number of films including past NYJFF favorites like The Queen Has No Crown (2011). The brothers’ current films, Mr. Gaga and Who’s Gonna Love Me Now?, are screening in this festival.

This panel discussion examines the role and format of biopics and filmic portraits and the expanded understanding of this genre in today’s filmmaking. Panelists include filmmakers from this year’s festival lineup and other guests, moderated by Jens Hoffmann, Director of Special Exhibitions and Public Programs.