Jacob Burns 21st Jewish Film Festival

The Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville presents its 21st Jewish Film Festival from October 6 to October 20. Curated by Bruni Burres, this year’s selections include more than two dozen narrative and documentary films from Israel, the United States and around the world. Bruni is a Senior Consultant for the Sundance Film Festival.

The Israeli comedy, Karaoke, about an an upper-middle-class suburban Sephardic couple will open the festival on Thursday, October 6. Director Moshe Rosenthal presents a humorous, and empathetic portrait of midlife self-discovery as he follows the changes and growth in the couple’s social attitudes after they are invited to a bachelor neighbor’s unhinged karaoke night. You can also see Karaoke on Monday, October 10 at 8:25 and Tuesday, October 18 at 7:30pm.

The festival will close on Thursday, October 20 with the buzzed-about Israeli TV sensation The Chef, from the award-winning producers ofFauda (JFF 2016) and Shtisel. The Chef follows the nightmare career change of a IT worker who takes a job as a prep cook at a trendy Tel Aviv restaurant where he encounters the boss from hell -a brilliant, driven chef struggling to keep his place atop the gastronomic world. The New York premiere of this multi-award-winner is on Sunday, October 9 at 12:30pm at Jacob Burns.

In between, Burres has curated a trio of top films from women film makers. Including, Amanda Kinsey’s tribute to Jews’ role in shaping the American West, Jews of the Wild West; and Pini Tavger’s coming-of-age drama that shines a light on immigrant life in Israel, More Than I Deserve, which was nominated for seven Israeli Academy Awards.

Other highlight films in Burres’ collection includes The Man in the Basement, a psychological thriller from the French director of Bicycling with Molière, Philippe Le Guay. The film begins when a young Jewish Parisian couple, played by Jérémie Renier (Saint Laurent) and Bérénice Bejo (The Artist, A Knight’s Tale), sell the basement of their apartment to a seemingly well-mannered teacher, Jacques Fonzic (François Cluzet, The Intouchables). When they discover that Fonzic is an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, they attempt to cancel the sale. However Fonzic has already befriended their teenage daughter. Their relationship turns the family’s world upside down. The film is based on a true story. iMordecai, a funny, heartwarming movie starring Judd Hirsch and Academy Award-nominated actress Carol Kane (Hester Street); Farewell Mr. Haffman, a riveting guide through the world of Vichy France, where lives are irrevocably shaped by the twin scourges of war and the black market; Schächten—A Retribution,a stirring drama about a young Jewish businessman who carries a burning resentment for the crimes the Nazis perpetrated against his family decades earlier; and a beautiful, lyrical rhapsody to honest emotion and human connection, Where Life Begins.

SEE THE FULL FESTIVAL SCHEDULE & GET TICKETS HERE