The Boston Jewish Film Festival has been a destination for international award-winning films on Jewish topics and themes since 1988. The Festival has welcomed hundreds of thousands of filmgoers and guests from around the world for screenings and conversations. The annual November festival now presents more than 60 screenings at venues throughout Greater Boston.
Event Tag: Film Festival
New York Jewish Film Festival
The New York Jewish Film Festival (NYJFF) is an annual festival in New York City that features a wide array of international films exploring themes related to the Jewish experience. The Jewish Museum and The Film Society of Lincoln Center work in partnership to present the NYJFF every January, with discussions by directors, actors, and film experts, taking place after screenings. Since its creation in 1992, the festival has more than doubled in size and scope!
The festival celebrates the Jewish experience and explores Jewish identity by seeking to broaden perceptions of the Jewish experience from a multitude of perspectives and nationalities. It presents an opportunity to discover new and challenging films that are often otherwise hard to find.
Izmir Sephardic Culture Festival
Celebrating the cultural legacy of the city of Izmir and the Sephardic community, which since the 16th century has been an important component of the ethnic mosaic of today’s Konak district area. There will be interesting tours, talks, film screenings, concerts and more during the festival.
DocAviv Festival
Docaviv NPO acts at the heart of one of the most innovative, vital, and surprising creative arenas – that of documentary filmmaking. Our vision is to provide unique platforms throughout Israel for screening documentaries, exposing new audiences to the genre and to films that re-examine and expand its boundaries.
Docaviv – the Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival is the largest film festival in the city of Tel Aviv, and the only festival in Israel dedicated exclusively to documentary films. It is among the world’s leading documentary festivals, with over 130 new local and international documentaries screened each year. The program includes several competitions: The Israeli Competition, the International Competition, the Depth of Field Competition, the Shorts Competition, and the Student Competition. The Festival also features a special tribute program dedicated to the work of esteemed filmmakers, as well as themed programs dedicated to music, art, social issues, virtual reality and new technologies, and other curated programs.
As a festival that aims to encourage the creation and distribution of influential, moving and powerful films, Docaviv hosts a range of multi-faceted workshops and meetings with the world’s leading documentary filmmakers, including Michel Gondry, Alan Berliner, Ondi Timoner, Brett Morgen, Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Claire Simon, João Moreira Salles, Ruth Beckermann, Kazuo Hara and others. The Festival also holds several industry events, including one-on-one meetings between Israeli filmmakers and international decision makers, and DOC-LAB-TLV, a rough-cut lab with international mentors.
In 2018, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences listed Docaviv as one of the leading festivals whose winners automatically qualify for Oscar consideration. From this year on, the winners of the Israeli, International and Short film competitions at Docaviv will be eligible to compete for an Oscar in the documentary category.
Each year, Docaviv awards Israel’s largest prize for an original Israeli documentary production, alongside other prizes for Israeli and international films, and outstanding student films. Prizes are also awarded to the winners of Docaviv’s annual student pitching competition and the documentary competition for high school students. Furthermore, the NPO is dedicated to supporting and encouraging young documentary filmmakers through various projects, such as DocuYoung, a hands-on documentary workshop for teenagers. The resulting films are screened each year at the Festival.
Throughout the Festival’s ten days, the celebration of documentary cinema takes place at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque and other venues throughout the city. In order to expose as wide an audience as possible to documentary works, the NPO also organizes two regional festivals: Docaviv Galilee, held in Ma’alot Tarshiha, and Docaviv Negev, held in Yeruham, as well as dozens of documentary film screenings at cultural centers throughout the country. In 2017, we launched Docaviv Cinema, providing film lovers with monthly screenings of the year’s greatest documentaries all year round, at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque and various cinematheques across the country.
The Festival and NPO were founded in 1998 by Ilana Tzur, who served as Festival Director for 12 years. The first edition of Docaviv Festival was four and a half days long, with 46 films screened. It was attended by 5,000 filmgoers. Today, Docaviv is Tel Aviv’s largest film festival, with an audience of over 67,000. In 2008, Galia Bador was appointed Festival Director and CEO of the Docaviv NPO. in 2016, Karin Rywkind Segal was appointed Artistic Director.
Dayton Jewish Film Festival
The Dayton Jewish Film Festival offers outstanding world cinema that promotes awareness, appreciation and pride to the diversity of the Jewish people and to the community at large. Our goal is to educate and entertain through evocative, narrative and documentary films that portray the Jewish experience from historic to current global perspectives
New Hampshire Jewish Film Festival
Jewish journeys begin at the 2021 NH Jewish Film Festival! In season 13, we are exceedingly proud to present a premiere lineup of 11 truly outstanding and diverse films throughout the state in a virtual format that will excite, enlighten, and provoke you, our audience.
Our Festival would not be possible without the valued support of our Sponsors, Friends of the Festival, Festival Committee members, the JFNH Board, Executive Director Elyse Hyman, and the JFNH staff. This year’s Festival is sponsored in part by the New Hampshire Council on the Arts.
Join your NH Jewish community at the movies and together, let’s share the power of film.
Jerusalem Film Festival
A Cinematic Celebration Beneath the Walls of the Old City
The Jerusalem Film Festival is an annual festival featuring Jewish and international cinema. Founded by Lia Van Neer in 1984, the festival has featured a wide range of genres over the years, including everything from documentaries to feature films. Every summer over the course of 10 days, the festival draws filmmakers from around the world to participate and attend.
The festival places a strong focus on Israeli and Jewish storytelling, featuring films that dive into everything from daily life in Israel to experiences of the diaspora. At the same time, it also showcases work from over 60 countries. Throughout the week, panels and Q&A sessions are held to inspire audiences through dialogue about cultural norms. The festival’s films are given special awards, some of which include the Spirit of Freedom for justice-themed films, the International Debut Award for up-and-coming voices, and the Wolgin/Haggiag Award for Israeli cinema. Film premieres are held at the iconic Sultan’s Pool, a stunning open-air amphitheater set beneath the Old City walls. In between watching films, festival attendees enjoy conversations over coffee and then wander over to the Mahane Yehuda Market for a taste of local cuisine.
The Jewish Film Festival is attended by film lovers, directors, along with locals and tourists alike. Cultural travelers looking to experience storytelling in a deeply historic setting will enjoy watching the festival’s films that can’t be seen elsewhere. The films also share a unique glimpse into Israeli society today and imagine the future. Everyone who attends the festival is united by a shared love of cinema and its power to shape our lives today.
Moscow Jewish Film Festival
“For three thousand years, the Jewish people have been scattered around the world. That is why Jewish cinema is created in many different countries, alongside with special festivals that select and showcase those films. The Jewish Film Festival in Moscow became the first of its kind in Russia. It was founded in 2015 and has been held annually ever since.
What is the Jewish cinema, after all? It encompasses far more than films made by Jewish directors or films which star famous Jewish actors. The never-ending search for Jewish identity, assimilation of diasporas and philosophy of self-determination and separation of the Jewish people in a society, return to the past, glorification of national heroes and mourning of victims, challenges of today’s world and the problem of relevance and preservation of traditions – these and many other issues attract filmmakers of all countries and continents. By searching and selecting the best Jewish films during the course of the past year we have attempted to shape an answer to the question of what these rapidly changing ethnic-themed films really are. Moscow, a large metropolitan area, a place where many cultures and nationalities live side-by-side, is one of the world’s most fitting locations for a festival that represents a dialogue of national communities.
The MJFF holds screenings of the most important and resonant Jewish films of the latest years. At the centre of the Festival is the Feature Films Competition Program, which is complemented by screenings of documentary films, short films and documentary shorts (as part of either competition programs or special screenings), as well as by discussions with experts on different topics raised in films and critics who specialize in Jewish cinema.” -MJFF
Krakow Film Festival
Every year since 1961, the city of Kraków has been hosting the Kraków Film Festival, making it one of Europe’s oldest events celebrating independent film. Each year, the festival hosts eight days of documentaries, shorts, and animated films submitted to an international competition for filmmakers and directors. Guests can watch a collection of around 250 Polish and international films as well as attend exhibitions, open-air screenings, concerts, and meet-and-greets with the filmmakers. The Kraków Film Festival is a historic event that celebrates the art of filmmaking with a Polish twist.
Krakow’s film festival began in 1961, making it one of the oldest film festivals in the world. It started as a local Polish film festival, showing only films made by Polish filmmakers. In 1964, it expanded to include international films, and in 2001 its name was changed to the Krakow Film Festival. Today, the Krakow Film Festival includes film competitions across four categories – national films, international films, documentary films, and music documentaries (DocFilmMusic). The 900+ attendees can view over 250 films, as well as enjoying concerts, open-air screenings, exhibitions, and meetings with film industry professionals.
Seret International – The Israeli Film and Television Festival
Seret International, an Israeli film and television festival has been around since 2015. It will premiere in four locations across the Netherlands. Taking on a comparatively larger pool of talent than their first two years, the film festival will be showcasing internationally acclaimed Israeli filmmakers, including both feature films and documentaries. Seret International will be screening for 5 days at the Amstelveen and Rialto cinemas in Amsterdam, the Lumière in Maastricht and the Louis Hartlooper Complex in Utrecht. The event has flourished since its inception two years ago. If you’re travelling in Amsterdam during the month of November, be sure to check for the festival’s details and stay up to date!
