Hello Fellow Film Fans,
 It was wonderful to see so many of you at our Kick-Off Event last month. Everyone raved about Chef Ina’s elegant and delicious food at the reception, and Erin Gruwell and her Freedom Writers and former students received a standing ovation after the film, giving us a fantastic start of our 22nd year.
We want to congratulate San Diego Filmmaker Nicole Opper on her Emmy nomination for her documentary Off and Running! We featured Off and Running in the Joyce Forum two years ago. You can catch the film on KPBS this month if you missed it at the festival!
I recently saw the feature film The Debt starring Helen Mirren and was so proud that SDJFF screened the original Israeli version two years ago. Both versions of the movie were excellent, we really strive to bring exclusive and cutting edge films here for your viewing pleasure. I also saw Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness currently playing at the Clairemont Reading Cinemas and LOVED it! It’s a beautiful documentary about an extraordinary man. Go see it before it closes.
There’s a new film festival coming to San Diego in October, the first annual German Currents San Diego showing new films from Germany. We are delighted to community partner with them for Mahler on the Couch, a charming tale of Mahler’s visits with Freud. We are excited to welcome them onto the local film festival scene and wish them good luck with their new endeavor.
Now is the time to begin thinking of becoming a volunteer usher for SDJFF’2012. If you are interested in signing up, please contact us at 858/362-1330.
I sincerely want to thank all of our underwriters, sponsors, community partners, patrons, volunteers, committee members and staff for an enormous job and all of your continued support. Have a Happy New Year, Have an Easy Fast and I’ll see you in at the movies
~ Fondly,
Helen L. Fleming, Chair |
The Human Resources Manager of Jerusalem's largest bakery is in trouble. He is separated from his wife, distanced from his daughter, and stuck in a job he hates. When one of his employees, a foreign worker, is killed, the bakery is accused of indifference, and the HR Manager is sent to the victim's hometown in Romania to make amends. Far from home, on a mission to honor a woman he didn't even know but has somehow grown to admire, the HR Manager fights to regain his company's reputation - and possibly his own humanity.
Horribly abused for years...Wrongfully imprisoned for decades...One signature away from freedom! 
DON’T MISS this wonderful film about a portrait of the great writer whose stories became the basis of the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof. Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness tells the tale of the rebellious genius who created an entirely new literature. Plumbing the depths of a Jewish world locked in crisis and on the cusp of profound change, he captured that world with brilliant humor. Sholem Aleichem was not just a witness to the creation of a new modern Jewish identity, but one of the very men who forged it.