Welcome to the 17th Annual Baton Rouge Jewish Film Festival! We're very grateful for the overwhelming support the Baton Rouge community has shown us from the beginning. The BRJFF aims to highlight the diversity of the Jewish experience through film. The BRJFF will educate, entertain, and inspire you, our audience, with films that deal with universal issues as they relate to Jewish traditions, challenges, and characters. The BRJFF also showcases Baton Rouge as a progressive, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic community. So join us: This year's festival program will keep you highly entertained

Schedule of Events

January 11, 2023

7:00 pm - Karaoke

Meir and Tova are a retired couple living in an upscale Tel Aviv apartment complex, their children long vanished into adulthood, the two parents left with each other — which, after 46 years, has gotten old. She's bored; he's a grump. Then one day they get swept into the orbit of middle-aged Itzik, a gregarious, confident, flashy, effortlessly insinuating bachelor moved into the penthouse upstairs. His influence is invigorating: Almost immediately, the older neighbors find themselves more attentive to their grooming, feeling more adventurous, eager for this neighbor's flattering attentions. But like wallflowers unexpectedly befriended by the cool kids, they also rapidly become over-dependent on their new pal.

(2022 | 100 min | Director: Moshe Rosenthal | Hebrew w/English sub | Intended for adults and may be unsuitable for children under 17)

January 12, 2023

7:00 pm: Speer Goes To Hollywood

Grand winner of the Israeli Academy Awards and winner of three major awards at the Israeli Documentary Awards, Speer Goes to Hollywood presents the enigma of Albert Speer: the highest-ranking Nazi in Nuremberg who, despite his crimes, was spared the death sentence. Speer Goes to Hollywood is the film that Speer never made. Based on months of audio cassettes recorded by screenwriter Andrew Birkin, it features Speer's callous attempt to whitewash his past in a feature film. The rare archival materials selected to illustrate his account offer us a chance to look beyond his words and ponder whether this eloquent but ultimately self-serving narcissist was recording history – or recording his story.

(2020 | 97 min | Director: Vanessa Lapa | English | Intended for ages 14 and older in the company of an adult. Contains scenes of intense violence.)

January 14, 2023

7:30 pm - The Man In The Basement

In this taut psychological thriller, a benign real estate deal becomes a sinister standoff between a bourgeois French couple and a dangerous negationist. A Parisian architect (Jérémie Renier) sells his flat's unused cellar to a former history teacher (François Cluzet), well-mannered and seemingly normal. But when he takes up residence, the stranger's secret life as an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist emerges. As the couple struggles to rescind the sale, the increasingly menacing buyer insinuates himself with their naive teenage daughter, turning the family's idyllic world upside down. Provocative and superbly acted, this nightmare scenario based on a true story will keep audiences guessing from one unsettling moment to the next.

(2021 | 114 min | Director: Philippe Le Guay | French, w/sub | Intended for adults and may be unsuitable for children under 17)

January 15, 2023, 2022

3:00 pm - Farewell, Mr. Haffman

A Parisian jeweler manages to get his family out to safety as the Nazis close in on Jewish citizens. But his own exit gets caught in that tightening noose, forcing him to return to the shop he's turned over to a newly-hired assistant and his wife. He becomes their reluctant long-term secret “guest,” hidden from prying eyes in the basement, his presence growing increasingly hazardous and complicated. It's an expertly acted drama with some unexpected twists.

(2021 | 115 min | Director: Fred Cavayé | French, w/sub | Intended for adults and may be unsuitable for children under 17)

Date: January 11-12 and 14-15, 2023

Location:
Manship Theatre,
100 Lafayette Street,
Baton Rouge, LA 70801.

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