
New York Jewish Film Festival 2018
This year’s festival features an exciting lineup of documentary, narrative, and short films, including new work by fresh voices in international cinema as well as restored classics.
Main Slate
Nabil Ayouch
2017|
France / Morocco / Belgium|
120 minutes|
French/Arabic/Berber with English subtitles
Five Moroccans are pushed to the fringes in Casablanca by the extremist government in this kaleidoscopic drama, an honest and deeply humanistic portrait of contemporary Moroccans yearning for connection amidst political crisis.
Ofir Raul Graizer
2017|
Germany / Israel|
104 minutes|
English/Hebrew/German with English subtitles
A gay German baker and the Israeli widow of the man they both loved connect after his death by auto accident in this delicate and graceful exploration of the fluidity of desire and sexuality.
Amos Gitai
2017|
Amos Gitai, Israel / France|
87 minutes|
Hebrew/Arabic/English with English subtitles
In this powerful and moving new documentary, Amos Gitai returns to the West Bank to better understand the efforts of Israeli and Palestinian citizens to try to overcome the consequences of the 50-year occupation.
Nicolo Donato
2016|
Denmark|
95 minutes|
Danish with English subtitles
A Jewish guitarist and his family barely escape Copenhagen after the Nazis seize control, and set off to a remote fishing village in the north of the country in this masterful suspense thriller.
Jean van de Velde
2017|
Netherlands / South Africa|
123 minutes|
English/Afrikaans with English subtitles
Based on the true story of the Rivonia Trial in apartheid South Africa, An Act of Defiance is the story of Bram Fischer, the lawyer who chose to put his life and freedom at risk to defend Nelson Mandela.
Tzahi Grad
2017|
Israel / USA|
92 minutes|
Hebrew/Arabic with English subtitles
A Palestinian handyman is accused of assaulting a young girl, and the progressive-minded Israeli actor who has hired him to do work on his house steps up as the lone voice in his defense in this morally complex, comic-tinged drama. Preceded by The Law of Averages.
Radu Jude
2017|
Romania|
83 minutes|
Romanian with English subtitles
Radu Jude’s (Aferim!) hauntingly beautiful documentary consists entirely of photographs from photographer Costica Acsinte that present idyllic images of pastoral life and audio of diary excerpts from a Jewish doctor, which portray a surging wave of anti-Semitism.
Daniel Najenson
2017|
Israel / Argentina|
69 minutes|
Spanish/Hebrew/Yiddish with English subtitles
During the wave of Eastern European Jewish emigration, thousands of Jewish women were lured with promises of wealth to Argentinian brothels. This trenchant documentary investigates this history, and weaves in the filmmaker’s own personal revelations on the matter. Preceded by Compartments.
Claus Raefle
2017|
Germany|
116 minutes|
German with English subtitles
This extraordinary film tells the story of four of the 1,700 Jews who hid in plain sight in Berlin throughout the war, though the capital was famously declared Berlin “judenfrei”—free of Jews.
Valerio Ciriaci
2017|
Italy / USA|
34 minutes|
Italian with English subtitles
An intoxicating short documentary chronicling a day in the life of the contemporary Roman Jewish community is accompanied by two shorts: one made up of a Jewish-Italian family’s heartwarming home movies, recently unearthed by the Centro Primo Levi, the other a hypnotic story of an archivist who becomes part of her own work. Followed by Della Seta Home Movies and Counterlight.
Su Goldfish
2017|
Australia|
81 minutes
When director Su Goldfish discovers as an adult that she has siblings she’s never met, she burrows through her parents’ pasts to uncover the truth in this introspective autobiographical documentary.
Francesco Amato
2017|
Italy|
98 minutes|
Italian with English subtitles
A detached psychoanalyst finds his life recharged by the presence of a young, attractive, and undisciplined personal trainer in this comedy, which veers from the intellectual to the delightfully slapstick. Preceded by The Backseat.
Nicolas Bedos
2017|
France|
120 minutes|
French with English subtitles
This hilarious and absurd take on the romantic comedy slyly toys with the cliché of writer and muse, following a man as he transforms from non-committal aspiring writer to fame-obsessed egotist.
Chen Shelach
2016|
Israel|
60 minutes|
Hebrew with English subtitles
This documentary explores one of the biggest taboos in Judaism—pork—and how the existence of Israel’s pork industry came to exemplify much of the tension inherent in Zionism. Preceded by The Red House.
Piotr Rosolowski & Elwira Niewiera
2017|
Poland / Germany|
82 minutes|
English, Italian, Spanish, Polish, German with English subtitles
Michał Waszyński is remembered as a Polish aristocrat, Hollywood producer, a reprobate and liar, an open homosexual and husband to an Italian countess, and director of one of the most important Jewish films of all time, The Dybbuk. But who was he really? Preceded by A Hunger Artist.
Sam Pollard
2017|
USA|
100 minutes
In this exhilarating documentary, long-time Spike Lee collaborator Sam Pollard pays tribute to multi-talented, multi-racial entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. by scrutinizing the political complexities and contradictions that defined his career.
Peter Stephan Jungk
2016|
Austria / Germany / Russia / UK|
91 minutes|
English/German/Russian/French with English subtitles
This documentary follows filmmaker Peter Stephan Jungk’s journey to understand his great aunt, the Austro-British photographer Edith Tudor-Hart, who lived a double life as a spy for the KGB and created the Cambridge Five, the Soviet Union’s most successful spy ring in the United Kingdom.
2017|
Various|
106 minutes|
Various languages
Six shorts from around the world run the gamut from documentary artist portraits to character dramas to experimental narratives.
From the Vaults
Rafi Bukai
1986|
Israel|
84 minutes|
Hebrew/Arabic/ English with English subtitles
Two Egyptian soldiers stranded in the Sinai Desert in the aftermath of the Six-Day War try to make their way back to safety across the Suez Canal in this absurd comedy that paints a humanistic, antiwar picture of Middle Eastern politics.
Michał Waszyński
1937|
Poland|
125 minutes|
Yiddish with English subtitles
A rich, ethnographic tapestry of Jewish legend, The Dybbuk is one of the finest films ever produced in the Yiddish language, filmed just before the outbreak of WWII and presented here in a brand-new restoration.
Renen Schorr
1988|
Israel|
103 minutes|
Hebrew with English subtitles
Late Summer Blues follows a group of high school graduates during the summer before they’re conscripted into the army. Restored after thirty years, this Israeli classic portrays the paradox of Israeli adolescence in raw, deeply human terms.
Alexander Rodnyanskiy
1990|
Soviet Union|
72 minutes|
Russian/English/German/Swedish with English subtitles
The Mission of Raoul Wallenberg investigates the mysterious circumstances surrounding the disappearance and death of Raoul Wallenberg—who had saved tens of thousands of Jews from the Holocaust in Budapest—following the end of WWII.
Gilberto Tofano
1969|
Israel|
89 minutes|
Hebrew with English subtitles
Siege is the story of a widow whose husband was killed in the Six-Day War and who wants to begin to put her grief behind her. But her late husband’s friends and family have other ideas—they expect her to remain in mourning for the rest of her life.
Tribute Screening
Amos Gitai
2008|
France / Germany / Israel|
89 minutes|
French/German with English subtitles
When a middle-aged French businessman, discovers a trove of wartime letters from his late father, he discovers that his mother, Rivka (Jeanne Moreau), is a Jew. Moreau is splendid in this film, directed by Amos Gitai, screening in tribute to the legendary late actress.
90 minutes
This selection features shorts from the Soviet Union’s animation studio Soyuzmultfilm, which was as pervasive and influential in the Soviet imagination as Disney was in America’s. Art history professor Maya Balakirsky Katz and film critic J. Hoberman will discuss how the studio brought together Jewish artists from all over the USSR and served as a haven for dissident artists.
60 minutes
Join Sam Pollard, director of NYJFF Main Slate selection Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me, for a behind-the-scenes master class on documentary filmmaking. An Emmy and Peabody award-winning director, Sam Pollard has directed and produced numerous documentary films.
The Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center are delighted to continue their partnership to bring you the 27th annual New York Jewish Film Festival, presenting films from around the world that explore the diversity of Jewish experience.
This year’s festival features an exciting lineup of documentary, narrative, and short films, including new work by fresh voices in international cinema as well as restored classics.
Download our official brochure. For those interested in additional information about NYJFF titles, please refer to our Print Source guide.






























