New promising, entertaining and exceptional award-winning films are featured in this annual festival, which brings Jewish lives and stories to the big screen. With venues across town, the Festival, now in its 20th year, shines the spotlight on Jewish and Israeli culture, art and history. For more information about the Houston Jewish Film Festival, please contact Guy Cohen at [email protected].

Schedule of Evets

Bella!

Documentary, Directed by Jeff L. Lieberman, 2023, USA, English, 102 Min., Kaplan Theatre

Bella Abzug, daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, was a pivotal and trailblazing figure in 1970s politics. With her successful campaign for U.S. Congress, Bella took her never-say-die advocacy for equal rights and justice to Washington. Using fantastic old footage and interviews with Hillary Clinton, Gloria Steinem, Barbra Streisand and more, Jeff Lieberman's documentary shows Bella's lifelong activist efforts—as well as her simultaneously charming and abrasive personality—as she blazes a trail for women's rights.

Time:
March 6, 2024, 7:30 PM
March 27, 2024, 1:00 PM

March 20, 2024

7:30 PM - Let the Party Begin

Drama| Directed by Aki Avni, 2023, Israel, Hebrew with English subtitles| 87 Min., Kaplan Theatre

This award-winning drama is the story of the country's greatest film producer whose film wins at the Cannes Film Festival. Two years later, post COVID and a difficult divorce, Jonathan is struggling and must sell everything. Unaware of the situation, his new wife decides to throw him a surprise party to celebrate his win at Cannes. When Jonathan finds out, he wires the house with cameras: who wouldn't want to be a fly on the wall at his own Hollywood party, to really hear what people think of him?

March 21, 2024

7:30 PM - The Dinner

Drama, Directed by Matti Harari and Arik Lubetzki| 2020, Israel, Hebrew and Russian with English subtitles, 79 Min., Kaplan Theatre

A smart dinner party turns into a cold buffet of secrets and lies in this gripping film. Emma and Gregori, new Israeli immigrants from Ukraine, yearn for their old lives. Alon and Yael, a well-to-do young couple, find their marriage in crisis. While Yael flirts with Alon's best friend, Alon initiates an affair with Emma who, unbeknownst to him, is married to one of his employees. When all five gather one evening, things begin to unravel dramatically.

March 24, 2024

7:00 PM - June Zero

Drama, Directed by Jake Paltrow, 2022, Israel, Hebrew, with English subtitles, 105 Min., Kaplan Theatre

American filmmaker Jake Paltrow revisits the 1962 trial of Adolf Eichmann with a gripping Hebrew-language historical drama centered on three Israeli characters on the periphery of Eichmann's last days: a precocious Libyan immigrant boy, a Moroccan prison guard and a Polish Holocaust survivor working for the prosecution. With Eichmann relegated to the background, the trio's seemingly ordinary lives become intertwined in the extraordinary, seminal moment. Warmly saturated 16mm filming gives a rich, antique texture to all three storylines.

March 25, 2024

7:30 PM - Children of Nobody

Drama, Directed by Erez Tadmor, 2022, Israel, Hebrew, with English subtitles, 108 Min., Kaplan Theatre

Inspired by a true story, this compassionate drama tells the story of at-risk youths living on the fringe of society on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Margalit provides the neglected boys refuge and motherly love in a shelter she runs in a run-down old house. When tragedy strikes, and with real estate developers threatening to demolish the home, Jackie, a graduate of the shelter, comes up with an ingenious, risky plan to ensure that he and the boys can continue living together. Erez Tadmor's new film tenderly depicts their struggles and aspirations.

March 26, 2024

7:30 PM - Home

Drama, Directed by Benny Fredman, 2023, Israel, Hebrew, with English subtitles, 111 Min., Kaplan Theatre

This dramatic portrayal of a young and recently married Orthodox man's dream to open a computer store in his ultra-Orthodox neighborhood goes awry when his entire community sees him as an existential threat. His whole world turned upside down, his own neighbors threaten his home and put his marriage to the test. Nominated for multiple awards and based on the filmmaker's own experience, this film depicts the constraints of free will within a predetermined world.

March 27, 2024

7:30 PM - Simone: Woman of the Century

Drama, Directed by Oliver Dahan, 2022, France, French, with English subtitles, 135 Min., Kaplan Theatre

Renowned French stateswoman and Holocaust survivor Simone Veil led the fight for the legalization of abortion, women's rights and prisoner rights as she rose to lead France's health ministry. Director Olivier Dahan chronicles Simone's remarkable, decades-spanning career as a human rights campaigner, feminist and first female president of the European Parliament in this intimate and epic portrait of an extraordinary woman who transformed her era defending a humanist message still relevant today.

March 28, 2024

5:00 PM - The Artist's Daughter at Caroline Wiess Law Building, 1001 Bissonnet Street, Houston, TX 77005

A visit to her estranged father's Tel Aviv exhibition of self-portraits renews the filmmaker's relationship with him, but not the way she expected. As she unearths a lifetime of her feelings of neglect through conversations with members of her family, she begins to understand how much her father's absence has eroded her sense of self, yet she remains determined to make meaning out of the void.

Margarita Linton emigrated from Ukraine to Israel when she was five years old. She graduated from the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in 2012, where she received the Galit Rozen Directing Award and the Class of 2012 Promising Director Award. She works as a film editor for documentaries, TV series, and short films, as well as an editing mentor at Sam Spiegel film school and Hadassah Academic College.

7:30 PM - Martha Liebermann at Caroline Wiess Law Building, 1001 Bissonnet Street, Houston, TX 77005

Set in Berlin, this gripping biopic follows Martha Liebermann, an upper-class widow who could never have imagined having to leave her beloved homeland at the age of 85. As a German Jew in 1943, however, her only choice is to go abroad or wait to be deported to a concentration camp. For now, the reputation and valuable pictures by her world-famous artist husband Max Liebermann still give her protection. Martha's friends pressure her into an illegal sale to finance her escape with a resistance group. But the Gestapo sees an opportunity to set a trap for the courageous opponents of the regime.

March 30, 2024

8:30 PM - Matchmaking

Comedy, Directed by Erez Tadmor, 2022, Israel, Hebrew with English subtitles, 98 Min., Kaplan Theatre

Moti Bernstein (Amit Rahav from Netflix's Unorthodox) is the son every mother wants, the ideal Yeshiva student and the perfect match for every young Ashkenazi bride. But he falls for the one choice he can't have: his sister's best friend Nechama from a Moroccan Mizrahi family. Moti follows his heart and decides to go out on a limb. Who wins—the system or his inner voice? Featuring an award-winning cast, this Israeli box office sensation delivers a healthy dose of laughter in this modern-day Romeo and Juliet.

March 31, 2024

1:00 PM - The Boy

Shorts from Israel: A Tribute to Yahav Winner

The Boy
Directed by Yahav Winner, 2023, Israel, Hebrew with English subtitles, 25 Min.
Avinoam and Barak, father and son from a Kibbutz bordering the Gaza strip, are forced to deal with another round of rockets and combat, each in their own way. One night, Barak reaches a boiling point and Avinoam is forced to absorb the heat.

Time Out
Directed by Rita Borodiyanski, 2023, Israel, Hebrew with English subtitles, 20 Min.
A portrait of a young woman from a struggling household, who serves as a soldier in the IDF checkpoint unit. When an emergency arises back home, she must leave immediately. She decides to catch a young troublemaker, in order to persuade her commander to let her go early.

Tariff
Directed by Shaked Gorbatt, 2021, Israel, Hebrew with English subtitles, 5 Min.
In this sweet, unexpectedly fun vignette, an Arab taxi driver and Jewish passenger from Jaffa try to break the awkward discomfort when news of an outbreak of violence is heard on the radio.

Under her Wing: Rachel-Hadas & Nelly
Directed by Yael Lotem, 2023, Israel, Hebrew with English subtitles, 7 Min.
Under Her Wing, a documentary series exploring that special kind of love between grandmothers and granddaughters. At age 90, Nelly decides to move to Israel from Brooklyn to be closer to her granddaughter.

Sirens
Directed by Erez Tadmor, 2017, Israel, Hebrew with English subtitles, 20 min.
As missiles rain down on Tel Aviv, a frustrated Israeli couple faces a series of misadventures after an early morning call from the fertility doctor, in this frantic, funny and surprise-filled Israeli Academy Award winner for Best Short Film.

This film contains adult themese, including nudity and is intended for mature audiences.

March 31, 2024

4:00 PM - Generation 1.5

Documentary, Directed by Roman Shumunov, 2023, Israel, Hebrew and Russian with English subtitles, 80 Min., Kaplan Theatre

Over one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union arrived in Israel during the 1990s. Generation 1.5—those who made aliyah as children and teenagers—are now adults, assimilated into Israeli society but still grappling with their identity and sense of belonging in their adopted homeland. This profound narrative of a truly mass exodus follows several immigrants, examining the discrimination they faced, compromises made by their families and the indelible mark they have made on Israeli society.

7:00 PM - Hummus Full Trailer

Comedy, Directed by Asaf Kobrovsky, 2022, Israel, Hebrew, with English subtitles, 93 Min., Kaplan Theatre

Three shipping containers of illegal goods get mixed up in the port city of Haifa. Russian smugglers, ultra-Orthodox gun dealers and Arab traffickers scramble to undo the mishap. Amid this mishugas, a couple of gay florists attempt to plan a wedding for a mobster's son. With a stellar troupe of top Israeli stars, this hilarious rollercoaster ride is packed with over-the-top Tarantino-esque action and outlandish stereotypes.

April 1, 2024

7:30 PM - No Name Restaurant

Actor Luzer Twesky in attendance

Join us after the film to toast our founders, Doreen Joffe and Sharon Kagan

Comedy, Directed by Stefan Sarazin and Peter Keller, 2023, Germany, English, Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles |121 Min., Kaplan Theatre

Alexandria, Egypt. To save the once largest Jewish community in the world from being shut down, Ben, an ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn Jew, is sent out to be the desperately needed tenth man for the ceremonies of Pesach. Having missed his plane and been kicked out of the bus in the Sinai desert, his last hope is Adel, a grumpy Bedouin looking for his camel. When their car breaks down, it becomes a matter of their very survival.

April 2, 2024

7:30 PM - Rabbi on the Block

Director Brad Rothschild and Rabbi Tamar Manasseh in attendance

Documentary, Directed by Brad Rothschild, 2023, USA, English, 88 Min., Kaplan Theatre

In this engaging documentary, Tamar Menasseh, an African-American rabbi, mother and anti-gun violence advocate, brings her unusual background to the streets of Chicago. Growing up in Chicago's Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation while also attending a conservative Jewish day school, she creates spaces for Jews and Blacks to communicate and grow as allies.

April 3, 2024

7:00 PM - Love Gets a Room at Albert and Ethel Herzstein Theater

Join Holocaust Museum Houston and the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center, in tandem with the Houston Jewish Film Festival, for a screening of the film Love Gets a Room.

Warsaw Ghetto, 1942. Surrounded by starvation, cold, and threatening Nazis, one dilapidated theater is alive with Jewish actors and musicians putting on a musical comedy for a full house. As the play-within-a-film unfolds both on stage and off, Stefcia must decide whether to abandon her current love to attempt a risky escape from the ghetto. Featuring excerpts from Jerzy Jurandot’s play, Love Looks for an Apartment, which was performed by Jews in the ghetto, this award-winning film offers insight into a little-known aspect of life in the Warsaw ghetto.


April 4, 2024

7:30 PM - The Monkey House

Drama/Comedy, Directed by Avi Nesher, 2023, Israel, Hebrew with English subtitles, 128 Min., Kaplan Theatre

Nominated for 11 Ophirs (Israeli Academy Awards), acclaimed director Avi Nesher's intricate literary mystery follows a plot by forgotten novelist Amitay to resuscitate his reputation and win over Tamar, his now-widowed childhood love. Assisting Amitay is Margo, an eccentric young actress who has her own vision for orchestrating her personal success. Will their intrigue work out as planned? A Nesher classic with irreverent humor, a vibrant visual sense and moving character studies.

Date: March 24 - April 4, 2024

Location:
Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston,
5601 South Braeswood,
Houston, TX 77096.

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