March brings spring, and the 30th annual St. Louis Jewish Film Festival, starting March 30, with a blooming field of films, including outstanding comedies, documentaries, dramas, historical thrillers and romances, many of them based on true stories.
“It’s unbelievable that the St. Louis Jewish Film Festival is 30 years strong. I feel like all six days of programming are a celebration of this feat. Every one of these films is a ‘can’t miss,’ ” said John Wilson, director of cultural arts at the Jewish Community Center. “We were all very proud of the selections in last year’s festival, and I think it’s unanimous that we feel this year’s lineup is even stronger.”
Each day has a theme, ranging from “Opening Night: Past, Present and Future” to “April Fool’s Comedy Double Feature” and “Spend the Day in Israel.” One of the festival’s most significant programs is “An October 7 Retrospective,” on Sunday, April 6, with two documentaries looking at events after the horrific attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. The festival wraps up with “True Stories,” including “Midas Man,” a biopic about The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein, and “Unexpected Wartime Heroes,” two films about heroes from different wars.
Trio of films for opening day
“Opening Day: Past, Present, Future” is March 30, with three films: the short documentary “Fiddler on the Moon: Judaism in Space” at 3 p.m., followed by “Names, Not Numbers” at 3:45 p.m. and “One Life” at 7 p.m.
“‘Fiddler’ is this wonderful 30-minute documentary that queries how a Jewish colony on Mars keep the High Holidays in step with their Earth-bound Jewish brethren. Or how does a Jewish astronaut observe the Sabbath in space? It answers questions most of us didn’t even know to ask. It’s a really fun film and serves as a kind of ‘appetizer’ before our two main events,” Wilson said.
The festival will premiere “Names, Not Numbers,” an interactive multimedia Holocaust film documentary project created by educator (and former St. Louisan/WashU grad) Tova Fish-Rosenberg. Local journalists Shula Neuman, formerly with St. Louis Public Radio, and Ellen Futterman, editor-in-chief of the Jewish Light, assisted with the project and appear on screen.
“This is a national program, and we’re debuting the St. Louis version which was filmed at H.F. Epstein Hebrew Academy. It features their students interviewing several Holocaust survivors,” Wilson said.
After the film, there will be a panel with Fish-Rosenberg; the film’s director, Michael Puro; noted historian and author Michael Berenbaum; Rachel Miller, one of the Holocaust survivors from the film; Devorah Haspel, a student from Epstein; and Rabbi Jonathan Fruchter, Judaic Studies Principal at the school.
“‘Names, Not Numbers’ is a phenomenal St. Louis achievement, and I’m so excited to celebrate St. Louis and all the local personalities featured in the film,” Wilson said.
Opening day ends with “One Life,” starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Helena Bonham Carter, based on a true story about Nicholas Winton, the young London broker who, in the months leading up to World War II, rescued more than 600 children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.
Comedy double feature and ‘a day in Israel’
The festival continues on April Fool’s Day (April 1), with a comedy double feature.” Last year, the hilarious Israeli comedy “Matchmaking” sold out — twice. Now those wonderful characters are back in “Matchmaking 2,” shown at 3 p.m. in Hebrew with subtitles. The sequel follows the happy couple as their families squabble about the details of the wedding, as well as the melancholy, handsome matchmaker Baruch, who faces his own romantic troubles. You don’t have to have seen the original to enjoy this one.
“Bad Shabbos” follows at 7 p.m., a comedy about two couples coming together for a Shabbat dinner, with unexpected events threatening the whole evening. The fast-paced comedy won the Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival, and stars David Paymer, Kyra Sedgwick, Method Man and Milana Vayntrub.
Want to spend a day in Israel? On Thursday, April 3, you can do that without leaving town. At 3 p.m., renowned British director Michael Winterbottom’s historical thriller “Shoshanna” takes you to Tel Aviv in 1938 in a true story-based film that is a mix of political thriller, historical drama and star-crossed romance. At 7 p.m., the Israeli comedy/drama “Running on Sand” is about an Eritrean refugee being deported from Israel but who is mistaken for the new foreign-born player that a struggling soccer team just brought on board. Suddenly, everything depends on this team’s success, and he doesn’t even play soccer. It’s in Hebrew with English subtitles.
Sue Koritz of the festival’s planning committee named “Shoshana” and “Running on Sand” as must-see films at the festival, describing “Shoshana” as “a well-told story of the Irgun, which has history, romance and adventure” and “Running on Sand” as “an unusual story of an immigrant soccer player played out in a mix of comedy and drama.”
The impact of Oct. 7
“An Oct. 7 Retrospective,” on Sunday, April 6 honors the memories of victims, as well as the hostages and everyone impacted by the horrific attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, with two documentaries, “Fighters” and “October 8” (also known as “October H8te”). “The committee wanted to look at the events of Oct. 7 and the time since, in a meaningful and sensitive, yet different way,” Koritz said.
“ ‘Fighters’ looks at the bravery of the IDF soldiers and the impact on their lives. ‘October 8’ examines the reaction to the attack as seen on college campuses and in politics and the media in our country. Two different perspectives on one horrible day in Israeli and Jewish history,” Koritz said.
“Fighters,” in Hebrew with subtitles, is the first episode of a new Israeli docuseries. Dr. Sarah Hartz, doctor of psychiatry at Washington University, will speak after that film. “Her focus is going to be on explaining the effects of PTSD, as experienced by those soldiers, but also as experienced in Jewish communities across the globe,” Wilson said.
“October 8” is a documentary being released in theaters in some cities (although not St. Louis), which looks at the protests and rising antisemitism on U.S. campuses following the Oct. 7 attacks. The documentary features Debra Messing, Michael Rappaport, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Mosab Yousef, son of Hamas’ co-founder, among others.
“October 8” director Wendy Sachs will take part in a Q-and-A session with the audience after the film.
“The film is about the explosion of antisemitism on college campuses, on social media and on the streets of America, in the aftermath of . . . Oct. 7, 2023, and really unpacks how we got to this moment, where Hamas is being celebrated, in universities, on the streets…as freedom fighters,” Sachs said.
Festival’s final two days
Monday, April 7, has a theme of “True Stories,” and includes “Midas Touch,” a biopic about the extraordinary life of Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein, at 3 p.m., followed by a talk by local Beatles expert Neil Davis.
At 7 p.m., the festival screens “Avenue of the Giants,” a laugh-and-cry film about an intergenerational friendship between a Shoah survivor and an isolated teen he meets in California 60 years later. Koritz said the film is a personal favorite at the festival, noting it’s “the moving story of two individuals, generations apart in age, who find understanding and healing through an unlikely friendship. At the heart of the film is the long-kept secret of a concentration camp experience.”
The festival closes Tuesday, April 8 with “Unexpected Wartime Heroes.” At 3 p.m., it’s “The Stronghold,” in Hebrew with subtitles, about Israeli soldiers in the Sinai desert during the Yom Kippur War. At 7 p.m. it’s “Irena’s Vow,” which was inspired by true events in World War II, when a non-Jewish woman, after witnessing Nazis killing, vows to do what she can to save people, and follows through by hiding a group of Jewish people, and helping them to survive, under the Nazis’ very noses.
