Jacob Burns Film Center Jewish Film Festival

The films in the 23rd edition of the JBFC's Jewish Film Festival offer close encounters with remarkable individuals in a wide range of fiction films and documentaries. In all of these films, personal stories lead to broader perspectives on history, culture, and society.

Schedule of Events:

4:00pm - Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire

Jewish Film Festival Opening Night Q&A with Professor and Writer Annette Insdorf

2024. 87 m. Oren Rudavsky. Panorama. US. English/French/German. Rated NR.

"Sometimes I'm afraid the tale might be forgotten. Sometimes I'm afraid it is forgotten already. So I'm telling it to relive it again." —Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, the best-known of his 57 books, brought his harrowing experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald and his subsequent spiritual journey to millions around the world, chronicling history in the most personal terms. Oren Rudavsky's artful documentary portrait does the same, using Wiesel family archives, original interviews, and beautiful hand-painted animation. An unforgettable scene where a group of black high school students discuss their deeply engaged response to Wiesel's writing is just one example of how the movie shows Wiesel's enduring relevance.

The Opening Night screening will be followed by a conversation with producer Annette Insdorf, Professor of Film at Columbia University's School of the Arts and the author of Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust. After the screening on April 23, join us upstairs for a Cocktail Reception in the Jane Peck Gallery to celebrate the beginning of the JBFC's 2025 Jewish Film Festival

Tickets: $13 (members), $18 (nonmembers)

7:00pm - ADA–My Mother the Architect

Q&A with Director Yael Melamede on April 24
2025. 81 m. Yael Melamede. Film First. Israel/US. English/Hebrew with subtitles. Rated NR.

Ada Karmi-Melamede is one of the greatest architects in Israeli history. Her breathtaking modern buildings, including Israel's Supreme Court, Ben Gurion Airport, and the Open University, helped forge the nation's identity. We are fortunate that her daughter Yael, who started her career as an architect, decided to become a filmmaker. Her documentary about her mother is a refreshingly candid encounter between director and subject. It is also one of the most revealing studies of the creative process in recent memory, and one that is keenly sensitive to the perseverance and sacrifice required of a woman who strives to excel in a male-dominated field.

Tickets: $13 (members), $18 (nonmembers)

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