The Trial of Adolf Eichmann

DOCUMENTARY FRANCE
A New Film from the producers of Being Jewish in France and Einsatzgruppen
The 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann held in an Israeli courtroom and broadcast around the globe, was a benchmark event in the historiography of the Holocaust and a milestone in media and journalism coverage. This compelling new documentary features accounts of Eichmann's capture, the drama in the courtroom and behind the scenes, and reactions from around the world. More

Never Forget to Lie

DOCUMENTARY USA
A New Film from Marian Marzynski, Acclaimed Director of Shtetl
Emmy Award winning filmmaker Marian Marzynski was born in Poland and survived the Holocaust as a Jewish child hidden by Christians. In Never Forget to Lie, the most recent of Marzynski's critically-lauded autobiographical films, the director explores his own wartime childhood and the experiences of other child survivors, teasing out their feelings about Poland, the Catholic Church, and the ramifications of identities forged under circumstances where survival began with the directive "never forget to lie." More

How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire

DOCUMENTARY ENGLAND
When British filmmaker Edelstyn travels to the Ukraine in search of his Jewish roots and discovers that the vodka distillery opened by his great grandfather in 1904 is still in operation, he decides--despite his utter lack of business experience--to become a liquor entrepreneur.

"A barnstorming tale of vodka and revolution." --BBC Radio
"★★★★ Unfolds as a travelogue, a memoir, a historical recreation, and a detective story." --Irish Times
"★★★★ Think Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated but fuelled by vodka rather than heavy-handed pathos: it's Everything is Inebriated...Edelstyn is such an engaging traveling companion. Witty, a bit feckless and often half-cut, he would be the perfect dinner party guest - and he'd bring a bottle." --The Times (London) More

Punk Jews

DOCUMENTARY USA
Profiling Hassidic punk rockers, Yiddish street performers, African-American Jewish activists and more, Punk Jews explores an emerging movement of provocateurs and committed Jews who are asking, each in his or her own way, what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century. Jewish artists, activists and musicians from diverse backgrounds and communities are defying norms and expressing their Jewish identities in unconventional ways. In the process, they are challenging stereotypes and breaking down barriers. More

Kol Nidre (1939)

NEWEST NCJF FILM RESTORATION USA YIDDISH FILM WITH NEW SUBTITLES
Long lost, Kol Nidre has been restored by The National Center for Jewish Film with 490 new English subtitles using the sole surviving 35mm nitrate print acquired from the family of director Joseph Seiden. Kol Nidre marks the on-screen reunion of Leon Liebgold and Lili Liliana, the husband and wife Warsaw actors famous for their roles as the young lovers in 1937's The Dybbuk. Also featured are the comedienne Yetta Zwerling, Motl the Operator star Chaim Tauber, and popular entertainer and cantor Leibele Waldman. More

Breaking Home Ties (1922)

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE: NY JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL, LINCOLN CENTER FEATURE FILM USA
Thinking he has killed his friend Paul in a jealous rage, David Bergmann flees St. Petersburg for New York, where he becomes a successful lawyer and woos smart independent Rose. When the Bergmann parents emigrate to New York, immigrant life takes its toll and they fall into poverty. Will David marry Rose? Will the Bergmanns be reunited? This drama was produced to counter the escalating anti-semitism of the Ku Klux Klan and Henry Ford in 1920s America. Long thought lost, the world’s only existing print of Breaking Home Ties was discovered and restored by The National Center for Jewish Film. More
NEW NCJF FILM RESTORATION!

Mahler on the Couch

IN THEATERS BOOK NOW!
A film by Percy & Felix Adlon, Austria/Germany, 2010, 100 min

This exuberant imagining of the real-life marriage of Gustav Mahler (Johannes Silberschneider) and his tempestuous wife Alma Schindler Mahler (the luminous Barbara Romaner) is a sensory feast of art, sex and celebrity in fin-de-siècle Vienna.

“Very witty and erotic…Percy Adlon is up to old tricks in this, delightful, artistically vigorous and occasionally loony fantasia about Vienna's cultural elite 100 years ago.” –The Hollywood Reporter More

Yizkor (Remembrance)

DOCUMENTARY SHORT USA
Winner of the 2010 Student Academy Award Gold Medal for Documentary, Ruth Fertig’s Yizkor (Remembrance) uses animation by Jeanne Stern, archival film, home movies and Super 8 footage to tell her grandmother’s story of survival and resilience in the face of crushing loss. More
WINNER— STUDENT ACADEMY AWARD, GOLD MEDAL- DOCUMENTARY
WINNER— CINE GOLDEN EAGLE AWARD, STUDENT DIVISION- DOCUMENTARY
SPECIAL MENTION— JEWISH WOMENS FILM FESTIVAL, NYC
WINNER— BEST STUDENT DOCUMENTARY, NASHVILLE JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

Nahum Glatzer & The German-Jewish Tradition

DOCUMENTARY USA
Filmmaker and art historian Judith Glatzer Wechsler’s new documentary is a moving portrait of the life and work of her revered father and scholar Nahum N. Glatzer (1903-1990). With over 260 books and articles on Jewish history, philosophy, and midrashic literature, Glatzer was a pioneer in the field of Jewish Studies at Brandeis and throughout the United States. More

Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray

DOCUMENTARY USA
Produced In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, this exploration of the little-known history of the 10,000 Jewish soldiers who fought in the nation's deadliest war is the first documentary devoted to the subject. Allegiances during the War Between the States split the Jewish community as deeply as the national debate in the country at large: some prominent Jewish voices cited the Torah to justify slavery, while others led the abolitionist movement. More
FILM FESTIVAL FAVORITE

Das Kind

DOCUMENTARY FRANCE
95-year old Irma Miko was born in Romania in 1914. A Jewish Communist and political activist from age 14, Irma joined the French Resistance in Paris in 1941. Her unimaginably dangerous assignment was to bring occupying German soldiers into the Resistance. A deeply moving account of a vanishing world and a portrait of an extraordinary, brave woman, the film won Best Film at the European Independent Film Festival, Paris. More

Women Unchained

DOCUMENTARY USA
An important new film documenting the experiences of modern-day “agunot,” or women whose husbands refuse to grant them a Jewish divorce. Narrated by actress Mayim Bialik (Blossom, The Big Bang Theory) and featuring an original score by guitarist C Lanzbom, lead singer of Soul Farm, Women Unchained offers strategies for what women can do to protect themselves and why the issue matters to all Jews. More

Grace Paley: Collected Shorts

DOCUMENTARY USA
A rich portrait of writer, activist and New York icon Grace Paley (1922-2007). Paley’s brilliant, frank and clever stories celebrating the authentic, daily lives of women are classics of American literature. Poet Laureate of Vermont & State Author of New York, Paley spent a lifetime on the front lines of the feminist & anti-war movements. More
WINNER— BEST DOCUMENTARY, STARZ DENVER FILM FESTIVAL
WINNER— BEST DOCUMENTARY, WOODSTOCK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
"BEST OF FEST"— PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
WINNER— BEST DOCUMENTARY, WASHINGTON JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

Singing in the Dark (1956)

NEW NCJF RESTORATION FEATURE FILM USA
A quirky combination of 1950s movie conventions—the musical, gangster and mystery movie—this virtually unknown independent film is one of the first American features to dramatize the Holocaust. Starring Moishe Oysher as a survivor suffering from traumatic amnesia who becomes a singing sensation. More
MOISHE OYSHER IN ENGLISH!

Ahead of Time

DOCUMENTARY USA
For seven decades foreign correspondent and photojournalist Ruth Gruber didn’t just report the news…she made it! Born in 1911 to Russian Jewish immigrants, Gruber reported from the Soviet Arctic, escorted Holocaust refugees on a secret war-time mission, and changed the world with dispatches from the Palestine-bound ship Exodus in 1947. More
WINNER— BEST DOCUMENTARY:
BERKSHIRE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, MIAMI JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL; DENVER JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL; PALM BEACH JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

Till the Tenth Generation

DOCUMENTARY IRELAND
The first major documentary about the Holocaust made in Ireland, Till the Tenth Generation tells the story of Dublin resident Tomi Reichental, who for nearly 60 years remained silent about his boyhood in Bergen-Belsen. One of three remaining Holocaust survivors in Ireland, Tomi travels back to Slovakia with veteran filmmaker Gerry Gregg to recall the life, and death, of Slovakia’s Jews. More
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE— IRISH FILM FESTIVAL BOSTON

Making Trouble:
Three Generations of Funny Jewish Women

DOCUMENTARY USA
This film festival favorite tells the story of six of the greatest female comic performers of the last century — Molly Picon, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Joan Rivers, Gilda Radner, and Wendy Wasserstein. Hosted by four of today’s funniest women — Judy Gold, Jackie Hoffman, Cory Kahaney, and Jessica Kirson — it's the true saga of what it means to be Jewish, female and funny. More
OFFICIAL SELECTION— JERUSALEM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, WOODSTOCK FILM FESTIVAL, SILVERDOCS/ AFI DISCOVERY CHANNEL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL, BOSTON JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL, SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL AND MANY MORE!

Clementine

DOCUMENTARY ISRAEL
A fascinating investigation that mirrors the development of Israel itself. Shaking his own family tree in this beautifully-crafted documentary, Tal Yoffe discovers a pioneering kibbutznik filmmaker, a Czarist army officer, a Nazi-trained blacksmith, several war heroes and a much missed father. More
HONORABLE MENTION — JERUSALEM FILM FESTIVAL 2009

The Green Dumpster Mystery

DOCUMENTARY ISRAEL
Traveling on his scooter through Tel Aviv, filmmaker Tal Haim Yoffe finds a discarded box of old photographs in a green dumpster. This docu-detective film, slowly unwinds a family history, beginning in Lodz, Poland, and traveling through the Siberian Gulag, a Samarkand sugar plant, a Ha’apala ship and the battlefields of the Sinai Peninsula. More
OFFICIAL SELECTION— ISRAEL FILM FESTIVAL, NEW YORK 2009

The Liquid of Life

DOCUMENTARY ISRAEL
Pini Schatz's funny and original film (subtitled How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Blood) proves there’s no reason to be afraid of the liquid that flows in our veins. Meet a cross section of unique Israeli characters including the director of Magen David Adom. And learn how to mix the perfect bloody mary. More
WINNER— BEST INT'L SHORT DOCUMENTARY, NY INDEPENDENT FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL

Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

DOCUMENTARY USA
The funny and surprising story of television pioneer Gertrude Berg, creator of America’s hit sitcom, The Goldbergs. As an actor, writer (12,000 scripts for CBS!) and TV celebrity, Berg’s trailblazing blend of comedy and social commentary—with Jewish characters at the center—endeared audiences and made her a cultural icon. By Aviva Kempner (The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg). More

Me and the Jewish Thing

DOCUMENTARY DENMARK
In this witty and thoughtful meditation on the collision of two cultures, Danish Jewish filmmaker Ulrik Gutkin and his Danish non-Jewish girlfriend find themselves on opposites sides in deciding whether to circumcise their new baby boy. What follows is Gutkin’s reconsideration what it means to be a Jew in Denmark. More
WINNER— BEST DOCUMENTARY, SAO PAULO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

Robert Jay Lifton: Nazi Doctors

DOCUMENTARY GERMANY
World renowned psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton discusses the processes by which ordinary doctors became murders, issues at the heart of his groundbreaking 1986 book The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. "This is a fascinating, compelling, profoundly disturbing movie that miraculously leaves one agreeing with Lifton that ‘there is room for hope.’” –Karen Cooper, Director, Film Forum More
US THEATRICAL PREMIERE @ FILM FORUM— NYC

Finding Leah Tickotsky

DOCUMENTARY USA
Finding Leah Tickotsky explores Polish-Jewish relations as well as one filmmaker's personal journey to discover her family roots. Through her eyes, Finding Leah Tickotsky provides a perspective on one of the most painful periods in history and serves as a reminder of the extraordinary contributions Jews made to Poland over nine centuries. More
TV BROADCASTS— SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA KOCE (UPCOMING); CHICAGO PBS WTTW

Einsatzgruppen

DOCUMENTARY FRANCE
Nazi mobile killing squads, led by highly-educated officers and aided by local collaborators, systematically murdered over a million Jews. Who were the men who carried out mass murder at close range? Prazan's definitive masterwork features a powerful array of astounding, never-seen-before film and photographs. “Essential viewing” – Variety More
OFFICIAL SELECTION— ATLANTA JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL,
SF JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL, NY JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

Gruber's Journey

FEATURE FILM ROMANIA
An Italian journalist suffering from debilitating allergies searches for a Jewish allergist named Gruber amid the outrageous, and increasingly sinister, bureaucracy of Nazi-occupied Romania. What begins as an absurdist wild goose chase leads directly to the heart of the final solution, and the disastrous fate of the local Jews. Radu Gabrea’s “Perfect yet subdued” film is Romania’s first drama about the Holocaust. More

A Pause in the Holocaust

DOCUMENTARY FRANCE
In the summer of 1943, thousands of Jewish refugees in Italian-occupied southern France enjoyed a rare respite from persecution, protected by an unusual force: the occupying Italian Army, who temporarily shielded local and foreign Jews despite pressure from the Germans and the French Vichy administration. Torino Film Festival (Italy) 2010 (France, 2009, 52 min) More
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE— WASHINGTON JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL AT ITALIAN EMBASSY

Angel of Ahlem

DOCUMENTARY USA
While liberating the Ahlem concentration camp, GI Vernon Tott felt compelled to photograph the horror. 50 years later, Vernon sets out to find the men he photographed, a quest that transforms all their lives. The evidence—of unbearable cruelty and miraculous survival—cements a sustaining bond between Vernon and the Jewish survivors. More

Schund

"MOCKUMENTARY" ISRAEL
In this clever and heartfelt mockumentary, a renowned Yiddish actor disappears under criminal circumstances. Searching for him twenty-five years later we meet the colorful characters that made up Israel’s vibrant Yiddish scene during the country’s first decades. More

Rabin: Shivah in November

DOCUMENTARY ISRAEL
The assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as he left a peace rally in 1995 plunged the country into mourning. That the gunman was a 25-year old Israeli further complicated the event’s fallout. Constructed entirely from television coverage aired in the seven days following the murder, Rabin: Shivah in November is a mosaic, allowing viewers to experience the events much as Israelis saw them, through the TV screen. More

My 100 Children

DOCUMENTARY ISRAEL
When Lena Küchlar discovered dozens of orphaned Jewish children in Krakow after WWII, she employed the progressive psychiatric methods of Janusz Korczak and slowly brought these damaged kids back to life. More

Camera Obscura

FEATURE FILM ARGENTINA
A lyrical, inventive new film from award-winning, film festival favorite director María Victoria Menis. At the end of the 19th century, Gertrudis grows into her role as the ugly duckling in a colony of Argentinean Jews until she meets a nomadic photographer whose uncompromising vision allows her to see herself for the first time. More

Father's Footsteps

FEATURE FILM FRANCE/ISRAEL
In the early 1970s, the Maimons, a rambunctious but tight knit Tunisian-Israeli family, settle in Paris seeking adventure and fortune. Israeli-French filmmaker Marco Carmel draws on events from his own childhood in this unusual coming of age story. Starring French celebrity actor/humorist Gad Elmaleh. More

How To: Be Or Not To Be

DOCUMENTARY NETHERLANDS
Dutch, Surinamese, African, Catholics, Muslims, Jews: young people from all over The Netherlands adapt Sholem Aleichem’s 1907 novel The Bloody Hoax at a unique international, multicultural theater school in Amsterdam. More

Bewoket: By the Will of God

SOCIAL CHANGE DOCUMENTARY USA
In 1990, Dr. Rick Hodes went to Ethiopia to set up medical clinics. He never left. "Dr. Rick" treats thousands of Ethiopians, among them a group of boys who live with him. An Orthodox Jew, he typifies the Jewish value of Tikkun Olam ("repairing the world"). More

Forgotten Children

SOCIAL CHANGE DOCUMENTARY AUSTRALIA
Amid the crisis surrounding the education of Aboriginal children in Australia, there is a ray of hope. The unlikely source: Israeli teachers. Follow a team of Israeli educators as they bring a new method for teaching at-risk kids to the Australian outback. More

Being Jewish in France

FESTIVAL & THEATRICAL HIT FRANCE
Yves Jeuland's sweeping documentary explores the rich and complex history of Jews in France--the first country to grant Jews citizenship--is fast becoming the definitive film on the topic. More

Fiestaremos!

SEPHARDIC MUSIC DOCUMENTARY USA
Judy Frankel was one of the leading collectors and practitioners of Sephardic folk music. Fiestaremos! includes interviews with Frankel, musical excerpts and performances in an intimate look at Frankel and Sephardic music and songs. More

Rachel de la Comédie-Française

PERFORMING ARTS DOCUMENTARY FRANCE
Before the era of Sarah Bernhardt, Rachel Felix (1821-1858) was the great actress of the Comédie-Française-and the first international dramatic star. Small, plain and fierce, Rachel's ability to convey passion in her performances thrilled audiences. More

Tel Aviv-Jaffa

SOCIOHISTORICAL DOCUMENTARY ISRAEL
Produced for the 100th anniversary of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Jaffa explores the city's history. Israeli TV celebrity Modi Bar-On hosts this fast-paced film which uses archival film and photos intercut with those of contemporary Tel Aviv. More

Next Year in... Argentina

CULTURAL IDENTITY DOCUMENTARY ISRAEL
Argentinean-born Israeli filmmakers Jorge Gurvich and Shlomo Slutzky met in Buenos Aires before both men immigrated to Israel. 30 years later, they take up the question of Jewish-Argentine history, identity and attitudes toward Israel. More

Mamadrama: The Jewish Mother in Cinema

NEW TO DVD AUSTRALIA
A funny, penetrating look at how the loving and affectionate portrayals in early Yiddish and Hollywood silent movies developed into the Jewish Mother of modern Hollywood and, conversely, the more flesh and blood characterizations in contemporary Israeli cinema. More

The Last Marranos

NEW TO DVD FRANCE
Despite being forcibly converted to Christianity in 1497 many of the Jews of Portugal continued to practice Judaism in secret. Today, residents of the village of Belmonte practice an amalgam of Christian and Jewish rituals. More

The Secret: Poland's New Jews

NEW TO DVD ISRAEL/POLAND
Through accidental discovery or deathbed confessions many Catholic Polish citizens have made an unsettling discovery: they were born Jewish. These “new Jews" must decide what this new truth means to them, as Poles and as Jews. More

Settlement
DOCUMENTARY ISRAEL
Twelve years after the release of his landmark film Shtetl, Marian Marzynski, a pioneer of European cinéma-vérité, returns to one of his favorite subjects - the mystery of survival during the Holocaust. More

The Axel Corti Collection
RE-RELEASE: FEATURE FILM CLASSICS AUSTRIA
God Does Not Believe in Us Anymore, Santa Fe, and Welcome in Vienna comprise a trilogy of films directed by Axel Corti and written by Georg Stefan Troller. The films are loosely based on Troller’s life as a Viennese Jew who fled Europe as a teenager, emigrated to the United States, and returned to Europe during World War II as an American soldier. More

Dear Mr. Waldman
FEATURE FILM ISRAEL
In Tel Aviv in the 1960s 10-year-old Hilik knows his goal in life–to make his parents happy and compensate for the grief they both suffered in the Holocaust. More

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him
GROUND-BREAKING DOCUMENTARY GERMANY
Malte Ludin's documentary about his father, Hanns Ludin, a prominent Nazi who was tried and executed as a war criminal in 1947. More

Yippee: A Journey to Jewish Joy
PERSONAL DOCUMENTARY USA
Iconic filmmaker Paul Mazursky chronicles his journey to Uman, Ukrane, the site of a unique annual gathering of Jewish men making pilgrimages to the burial place of Rabbi Nachman. More

Multiply by Six Million
ART & THE HOLOCAUST USA
This short film is the culmination of Evvy Eisen's fifteen-year long project photographing Holocaust survivors and collecting their stories. More

Bar Mitzvah (1935)

NEW NCJF RESTORATION USA YIDDISH FILM NEW SUBTITLES
A shund sensation starring Boris Thomashefsky in his only film performance! "Lightning bolts of cinematic revelation," -The New Yorker More

The Jester Der Purimspiler (1937)

35MM RESTORATION NEW SUBTITLES POLAND
The Jester's lively circus and vaudeville music and set pieces provide a glimpse of Warsaw's then-thriving Yiddish revues and cabarets, which were destroyed soon after. More

His Wife's Lover Zayn Vaybs Lubovnik (1931)

35MM RESTORATION NEW SUBTITLES USA
Billed as the "first Jewish musical comedy talking picture," His Wife’s Lover stars the popular comedian of the Yiddish theatre Ludwig Satz. This fast-paced comedy revels in its role reversals and love triangles. More

The Cantor's Son Dem Khazns Zundyl (1937)

35MM RESTORATION NEW SUBTITLES USA
This toe-tapping Yiddish musical drama marks the screen debut of Moishe Oysher in the title role critic J. Hoberman calls the “anti-Jazz Singer.” Leaving behind his Shtetle Belz for New York's Lower East Side, Sol eventually lands the American dream, becoming a popular singer and radio star. More

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