27th Annual Jewish Film Festival of Dallas

Schedule
Monday, September 11, 2023
7:00pm - 9:00pm: The Story of Annette Zelman
The nostalgic aura of old-fashioned wartime romances envelopes this engaging and handsomely produced drama set in Nazi-occupied Paris that for the first time brings to light the tragic love story of Annette Zelman and Jean Jausion, whose affair was denounced to the Gestapo. It all started like any youthful, carefree courtship. While students at a French art school, Annette Zelman caught the eye of Jean Jausion. They quickly fell in love and fate seemed to be smiling on them. But the young man’s father could not tolerate the idea of their romance and unbeknownst to Jean, reported Annette’s Jewish identity to the Gestapo. Soon after, she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, and Jean was driven to despair by her disappearance and his father’s responsibility. A quintessential statement on love and romance during wartime, this riveting drama presents a story of extraordinary quality based on actual events recounted in the book Dénoncer les Juifs sous l'Occupation (Informing on Jews during the Occupation) by Laurent Joly.

Monday, September 18, , 2023
7:00pm - 9:00pm: Where Life Begins
Set in the bucolic Calabrian countryside, this intimate and elegantly rendered romantic drama about family, faith, and freedom is the directorial debut of veteran French actor Stéphane Freiss. An ultra-Orthodox family has arrived in the south of Italy from their home in eastern France to assist with the annual harvest of the citron fruits used during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Among them is Esther (Lou de Laâge), a rabbi’s daughter who is increasingly dissatisfied with her life, chafing at the bonds of her religious upbringing and resentful of her imminent arranged marriage. When she meets and feels a growing attraction for the farm’s owner, Elio (Riccardo Scamarcio), she dares to imagine a different, potentially happier path for herself. Where Life Begins is an intelligent and honest depiction of the pain of questioning one’s faith and community that offers no easy answers.

Wednesday, September 20, 2023
7:00pm - 9:00pm: My Neighbor Adolf
Colombia, May 1960, just after Israel’s abduction of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. Polsky, a lonely and grumpy Holocaust survivor, lives in the remote Colombian countryside. He spends his days playing chess and tending his beloved rose bushes. One day, when a mysterious old German man moves in next-door, he suspects that his new neighbor is... Adolf Hitler. Since nobody believes him, he embarks on a detective mission to find the evidence. But, in order to gather evidence, he will need to be closer to his neighbor than he would like. So close that the two could almost become friends.

Wednesday, September 27, 2023
7:00pm - 9:00pm: J'accuse!
The Lithuanian Jewish community was decimated in the Holocaust: over 220,000 Jews, more than 95% of the population, were murdered. A key player in the massacre was Lithuanian nationalist Jonas Noreika, who is today revered as a national hero, and protected by the contemporary government's official policy and infamous Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Centre. In this galvanizing documentary, follow the experiences of two dissident campaigners: Grant Gochin, whose family was murdered by Noreika; and Silvia Foti, a brave Lithuanian woman fighting for the truth... and whose grandfather was Jonas Noreika. Together, the two push against Lithuania's systemic Holocaust denial in an attempt to bring justice to victims and the truth to account.

Wednesday, October 4, 2023
7:00pm - 9:00pm: Soul Doctor
After hundreds of sold-out performances on Broadway and across the world, Soul Doctor comes to the big screen in this uplifting musical journey that the New York Times called, "INSPIRING AND ABSORBING! A fascinating story with beautiful music, Soul Doctor is set in an era rampant with racism and post-war antisemitism, SOUL DOCTOR is a movie musical celebration of two marginalized communities and the power of music to unite. Told through the unlikely friendship between Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, and legendary singer and activist, Nina Simone. Filmed LIVE in Jerusalem after hundreds of sold-out performances on and off Broadway and throughout the world, SOUL DOCTOR stars Tony Nominee Josh Young and Nya Trysha with members of the original Broadway cast.

Tuesday, October 10, 2023
7:00pm - 9:00pm: Stay With Us
After three successful years living and working in America, French-Jewish actor and comedian Gad Elmaleh decides to move back home to Paris. He misses his family and friends. Or at least that's what Gad tells his loving yet overbearing parents, Régine and David. However, it's not long before his parents find out the true reason for their son's return - after a long period of ambivalence towards his own Jewishness, Gad has officially decided to convert to Catholicism. Dumbfounded by his sudden obsession with the Virgin Mary, and with only five weeks before his baptism, Gad's family endeavor to bring him back to Judaism for fear of losing him forever. Inspired by the director's own fraught relationship to the Jewish faith and starring Elmaleh's real-life family, Stay With Us is a heart-warming and charming story about faith, family and acceptance.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024
7:00pm - 9:00pm: The Devil’s Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes
The Devil’s Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes unearths secret recordings of Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust’s Final Solution, which definitively shows his active involvement in the planning and implementation of one of the greatest atrocities in world history. Recorded in Buenos Aires in 1957:00pm by Dutch journalist and former SS-Officer Willem Sassen with the intention to prove the Holocaust did not happen as portrayed and without Hitler’s knowledge, these tapes show the opposite and expose Eichmann, in his own voice, stunningly contradicting claims he made during his eventual trial for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes against the Jewish people.

Date: September 11, 2023 - January 31, 2024

Location: Studio Movie Grill - Royal Lane - 11170 North Central Expressway Dallas, TX 75201

Click here for more information