The WJFF presents films year-round!
We host over 70 screenings annually beyond the festival, and are thrilled to announce a stellar lineup for the spring featuring new cinema from the US, Algeria, Canada, France, India, Israel and Switzerland. Many of the shows will include talkbacks with filmmakers.
MAHLER ON THE COUCH
Tuesday, March 24, 7:30 pm
The great composer Gustav Mahler has problems: His beloved, headstrong wife Alma is having an affair with the young architect Walter Gropius. Mahler tracks down Sigmund Freud in Holland and begs for help, in this exuberant, funny and moving film.
THE STURGEON QUEENS
Wednesday, March 25, 7:30 pm
Four generations of a Jewish immigrant family created Russ and Daughters, a Lower East Side lox and herring emporium that thrives to this day. Follow its fascinating history through interviews with the store’s namesakes and stalwart patrons such as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin.
ALTINA
Tuesday, April 14, 7:30 pm
Born in a New York mansion to a Sephardic tobacco tycoon from Turkey, Altina Schinasi (1907-1999) quickly eclipsed her guarded childhood to make sexually liberated art with a flagrant audacity that became the trademark of a life lived to the fullest. Along the way, she picked up an Oscar nomination; befriended Martin Luther King Jr.; and hid a member of the Hollywood Ten during the Red Scare.
BENEATH THE HELMET:
From High School to the Home Front
Tuesday, April 21, 7:30 pm
A coming of age story that highlights five young Israeli high school graduates, who are drafted into the army to defend their country. At the age of 18, away from their houses, family, and friends these young individuals undergo a demanding journey, revealing their core, ideals and dreams.
THE LENGTH OF THE ALPHABET
Tuesday, May 5, 7:30 pm
Order of Canada recipient Naïm Kattan considers language, place and home to be the three pillars of his life and work. Director Joe Balass presents a touching portrait of the Iraqi-Jewish Francophone Canadian author—from his youth in Baghdad to his studies in France and his move to Montreal in the 1950s where he flourished.
EL GUSTO
Tuesday, May 12, 7:30 pm
Disbanded by the 1954 Algerian Revolution, an orchestra of young Jews and Muslims in the city of Algiers went silent for sixty years. That is, until filmmaker Safinez Bousbia fell in love with their infectious Chaabi music – Sephardic Spanish rhythms with Arabic sound – and brought the orchestra back together,for a show reminiscent of The Buena Vista Social Club.
DAWN
Tuesday, May 19, 7:30 pm
Two men wait through the night in British-controlled Palestine for dawn – and for death. One is a captured English Officer. The other is a young Israeli freedom fighter whose assignment is to kill the officer to avenge the British execution of a Jewish prisoner. Based on Eli Wiesel’s best-selling novel.
CLOSER TO THE MOON
Tuesday, May 26, 7:30 pm
The true account of a group of high-ranking Jewish members of the nomenklatura, who, in 1959, staged what was to become known as the coup of the century: they robbed Romania’s National Bank, making it look like a film shoot. Despite its tragic arc, this incredible story, forever shrouded in mystery, gets an unexpectedly light treatment with Vera Farmiga, Mark Strong, and Game of Thrones’ Harry Lloyd.
A LA VIE
Sunday, June 9, 7:30 pm
Three women who were all in Auschwitz, but who haven’t seen each other since the war, get together at Berck-Plage in 1960. This break offers Hélène, Rose, and Lili many firsts: their first real meal together, their first ice cream, and their first swim. There will be laughter, song and merriment; but the women also find their rekindled friendship burdened by unspoken memories.
TOUCHDOWN ISRAEL
Tuesday, June 16, 7:30 pm
Against all odds, an aggressive new sport is playing out in the Israel’s stadiums. Weekend warriors team up, suit up, don helmets over their kippahs, and charge the field in a season of full-contact American Tackle Football. Secular or religious, Israeli-born or not, these Jews, Muslims and Christians are transformed from ordinary citizens into fierce gridiron competitors.
BLUE LIKE ME
Tuesday, June 30, 7:30pm
An exploration of artist Siona Benjamin’s fascinating life and work. A Jew raised in India, educated by nuns and Zoroastrian teachers, brought up alongside Hindu, Christian and Muslim neighbors, Benjamin had gone on to achieve global acclaim for her vibrant paintings, which blend Talmudic, Hindu and Islamic references with contemporary Western art influences.
