Boston Jewish Film Festival

Featuring international films by a selection of new talents, this year’s lineup includes lyrical works from Spain and Sweden, a brilliant coming of age short from the Netherlands, and a bittersweet love story from Israel. Viewer discretion is advised. Curated by Giuseppe Di Caprio.

Up-And-Coming filmmakers is an understatement because these filmmakers are here to stay. Come see what the youngest and brightest directors have brought to the big screen this year from all over the world and what they will be bringing for years to come.

José (19 years old) lives with his mother (50s) in Guatemala: a tough life in one of the world's most dangerous, religious, and impoverished countries. José is her youngest and favorite child, and her life is going to church and selling sandwiches. Jose spends his days on crowded buses and in the streets delivering food. Resigned and aloof, in free moments he plays with his phone and looks for random sex. When he meets Luis, Jose is thrust into a dimension of passion and pain and self-reflection that was previously unimaginable. Jose (2018) won "Queer Lion" award at 75th Venice Film Festival and was first ever film from Central America in Venice Film Festival.

Sophia Pinsky is doing just fine: she has a job, an apartment, and a girlfriend. That is, until her girlfriend breaks up with her and her grandfather dies on the same day. As her life starts to unravel, Sophia moves back in with her overbearing Russian-Jewish grandmother in the Boston suburbs. When her grandmother reveals that not only is she dating again but she's in love with the family's rabbi, Sophia is pitted grandmother in a struggle to define loyalty and love, all while trying to become a "real adult," once and for all.

Paternal Rites is a first-person essay film that examines the secret underbelly of a contemporary Jewish American family as they grapple with the aftereffects of physical and sexual abuse on their present-day lives. It is also a groundbreaking film about the nature of trauma and memory itself: the ways in which trauma encrypts in uncanny ways; the function of speech and narrative in the process of decryption; and the role of film and filmmaking in the practice of healing. Paternal Rites draws inspiration from podcasts like This American Life and Radiolab and the long lineage of LGBT essay filmmakers in the U.S. such as Jenni Olson, Marlon Riggs, and Richard Fung.

Princess Shaw placed her dreams on YouTube. Then they became a reality. This is the extraordinary true story of an aspiring musician down on her luck, who inspired internationally famous YouTube artist Kutiman to create a magical collaboration that would bring her music to a whole new audience. Discussion with director Ido Haar and star Princess Shaw to follow.

Latter Day Jew follows H. Alan Scott, a gay former Mormon/converted Jew/cancer survivor/writer-comedian, as he finds his spiritual path and prepares for his Bar Mitzvah at age 34.

Eden a 17-year-old high school student discovers that her two best friends are planning to sell their kidneys to pay for cosmetic surgery and a dress for prom. Eden, who is secretly a trans woman, realizes that this may be the answer to her prayers. She joins the others on their journey to Kiev to exchange their kidneys for the flawless body of their dreams. Their trip does not go as planned and when Eden’s secret is exposed, all three of them need to come to terms with the prejudices they have and redefine who they really want to be in this world.

Red Cow is a coming-of-age film that takes place in the days leading up to the assassination of Rabin and depicts the life of Benny, 16, orphaned from mother at birth and the only child of Joshua - a religious, right-wing extremist, in those critical junctures when she is forming her sexual, religious and political awareness.

Sophia Pinsky is doing just fine: she has a job, an apartment, and a girlfriend. That is, until her girlfriend breaks up with her and her grandfather dies on the same day. As her life starts to unravel, Sophia moves back in with her overbearing Russian-Jewish grandmother in the Boston suburbs. When her grandmother reveals that not only is she dating again but she's in love with the family's rabbi, Sophia is pitted grandmother in a struggle to define loyalty and love, all while trying to become a "real adult," once and for all.

The film captures the daily duality of three young Palestinian women in Tel Aviv, caught between hometown tradition and big city abandon, and the price they must pay for a lifestyle that seems obvious to many: the freedom to work, party, fuck, and choose.

Zac Posen is one of the most recognizable brands in the fashion world. Discovered as a teenager, Posen would design clothes for his high school friends: New York cool kids such as Chloë Sevigny and Claire Danes. A wunderkind who crashed and burned at an age when many designers are still finding their footing, his fast ascent to fashion stardom also was his downfall. Featuring interviews with Posen’s family and friends (including Naomi Campbell and André Leon Talley) and lots of style, House of Z follows Posen’s rise and fall…and, at last, his recovery. Official Selection, Tribeca Film Festival, 2017

Saar is an HIV positive gay man living in London, where he found refuge from the religious kibbutz where he grew up in Israel. Ever since he was diagnosed with HIV, Saar has craved his family’s love, while they struggle with fears and prejudices.

Saar is an HIV positive gay man living in London, where he found refuge from the religious kibbutz where he grew up in Israel. Ever since he was diagnosed with HIV, Saar has craved his family’s love, while they struggle with fears and prejudices.

A documentary about the same-sex marriage movement, from the final frenetic months of the legal and grassroots campaign.