Opening Night Party

Join us for appetizers and drinks.

Max Minsky and Me

Nelly Sue Edelmeister (Zoe Moore) is a skinny 13-year-old future astronomer living in Berlin with her divorcing American Jewish mother (Adriana Altaras) and German Christian father (Jan Josef Liefers). While her mom pushes her to practice for her fast-approaching Bat Mitzvah...

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Max Minsky and Me

Nelly Sue Edelmeister (Zoe Moore) is a skinny 13-year-old future astronomer living in Berlin with her divorcing American Jewish mother (Adriana Altaras) and German Christian father (Jan Josef Liefers). While her mom pushes her to practice for her fast-approaching Bat Mitzvah...

Love and Dance

Chen is caught in the middle of the cultural conflict raging between his Russian-born mother and his Israeli father. One day he stumbles on a ballroom dance class for young people and sees Natalie, a stunning young Russian girl with whom he immediately falls in love...

Leaving Paradise: Jews of Jamaica

A lively and colorful look at a little known community that has existed on the island of Jamaica for over 350 years. A film exploring the stunning structure of one of only five extant synagogues in the world with a white sand floor and Jewish traditions interpreted through a diverse array of racial and ethnic backgrounds...

The Longing: The Forgotten Jews of South America

Argentinean-born documentary filmmaker Gabriela Bohm travels to Ecuador to unlock the stories of a small group of South Americans who long to affirm their Jewish faith against all odds...

Circumcise Me

Born Chris Campbell, the son of an ex-nun and a Catholic schoolteacher, he converted to Judaism not once, but three times - Reform, Conservative and Orthodox. His spiritual journey began as a drug-drenched teenager in Philadelphia and ended in Jerusalem. So what’s to laugh about? It’s the way he tells it...

Chutzpah This Is?

The world's first ever Jewish Hip-Hop Supergroup struggles to make the video which will save their record deal from falling through in this highly unorthodox, completely un-kosher documentary musical. Starring Dr. Dreck as George Segal, as you have never seen him...

A Trip to Prague

Does everyone need to meet a nice Jewish girl? With striking illustrations and deadpan narration, this film relates a funny anecdote about the Jewish instinct to make a shiddach...

Corner Delancy

In this fictional narrative, an illustrator sketches key events in his family life to illuminate his relationship with his son.

12:00 PM - Free Luncheon

Luncheon limited to first 60 seniors 65 years and older who reserve.
Call 207.831.7495 to secure a reservation.

1:30 PM - Blessed Is The Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh

Narrated by three-time Academy Award nominee Joan Allen, Blessed Is the Match is the first documentary feature about Hannah Senesh, the World War II-era poet and diarist who became a paratrooper, resistance fighter and modern-day Joan of Arc. Safe in Palestine in 1944, Hannah joined a mission to rescue Hungary’s Jews.


*Audience Award for best documentary, The Washington Jewish Film Festival
*Audience Award for best documentary, The Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival

In Person: Roberta Grossman, Director

Strawberry Fields

When a suicide bomber targeted Karni in 2005, Israel closed the crossing and thousands of strawberry crates, destined for Europe, made it no further than Gaza’s dumpsters. This film documents Gaza’s strawberry fields in the season that followed, from May 2005 to April 2006, the year in which Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip and Hamas assumed political power...

Blessed Is The Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh


Narrated by three-time Academy Award nominee Joan Allen, Blessed Is the Match is the first documentary feature about Hannah Senesh, the World War II-era poet and diarist who became a paratrooper, resistance fighter and modern-day Joan of Arc. Safe in Palestine in 1944, Hannah joined a mission to rescue Hungary’s Jews.

*Audience Award for best documentary, The Washington Jewish Film Festival
*Audience Award for best documentary, The Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival

In Person: Roberta Grossman, Director

Facilitator: Karin Anderson, Dala Consulting Group

The First Basket

The First Basket explores the impact that basketball had on Jewish immigrants, as well as the profound influence that unsung Jewish basketball pioneers had on the evolution of basketball, as it grew from a game played with ash-cans on tenement steps to the second most popular sport in the world...

Jerusalem is Proud to Present

Please stay for an after film audience discussion facilitated by Stephen Wessler, the Executive Director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence.

SHOW YOUR PRIDE! After the MJFF screening of Jerusalem Is Proud to
Present, head up the street to Blackstones (6 Pine Street) or down the
road to Chef et al. at 408 Forest Ave. for a drink deal to persons
holding ticket stubs for the film.

In the summer of 2006, Jerusalem was host, for the first time, to the World Pride events, an annual celebration of LGBT freedom and culture, planned to culminate in a traditional gay pride parade. Organizers of Jerusalem World Pride confront fierce, categorical opposition from religious and political leaders who view their peaceful celebration as moral terrorism.


*“Movies That Matter” Human Rights Award, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2007

The Tribe

Diaspora 101. What can the most successful doll on the planet show us about being Jewish today? Narrated by Peter Coyote, THE TRIBE combines old school narration with a new school visual style. The film skillfully weaves together archival footage, graphics, animation, Barbie dioramas, and slam poetry to take audiences on an electric ride through the complex history of both the Barbie doll and the Jewish people...



*2007 Winner: International Jewish Topics: Argentina International Jewish Film Festival
*2008 Winner: Best Documentary Short: Cleveland International Film Festival
*2006 Indiewire's Sundance Critic's Choice

Arab Labor - Episodes #1, #5

Don’t miss this groundbreaking prime-time situation comedy on Israeli TV show - and, the first ever to feature an Arab Israeli family. In this provocative sitcom - Amjad, the series protagonists, attempts to assimilate his family into mainstream Israeli society are an opportunity to satirize the prejudice and stereotypes that exist on both sides...

888-Go-Kosher

A day in the life of New York's only rapid-response koshering service. A humorous and enlightening documentary look at the Jewish Orthodox world.

Hold The Soup

Faye Lederman, director of A Good Uplift, documentes competitive eaters from across the country as they face off in a sloppy race for title of the World Matzo Ball Eating Champion. Jewish grandmothers will think twice about offering up seconds after watching their sacred matzo balls turn to sport in this comedic short.

Arab Labor - Episodes #4, #10

Don’t miss this groundbreaking prime-time situation comedy on Israeli TV show - and, the first ever to feature an Arab Israeli family. In this provocative sitcom - Amjad, the series protagonists, attempts to assimilate his family into mainstream Israeli society are an opportunity to satirize the prejudice and stereotypes that exist on both sides...

King Lati The First

Lati is only eight years old but he already has a heavy load on his shoulders. Born in Tel Aviv to a Senegalese father and a Belarusian mother, he is heir to the throne of a Senegalese tribe. But he is also a typical Israeli child; a fan of McDonald's and especially of the local basketball team...

After film panel:

Kirk Read, Humanities Chair, Bates College
Abraham J. Peck, Director of Academic Council for Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Studies, University of Southern Maine
Fatuma Hussein, Director, United Somali Women of Lewiston.


After our program join Reza Jalali, of the University of Southern Maine, and Ismail Ahned, owner of STTAR Consultancy Services, for a book signing. Reza has written the forward to New Mainers: Portraits of Our Immigrant Neighbors and Ismail is one of the subjects in the book which will be published in March.

Please visit the exhibit: The Somali Diaspora: A Journey Away, Photographs by Abdi Roble also at the Olin Arts Center.

Run for your Life

The story of how one Jewish immigrant’s determination and sweat created the most significant running event in the world. Run for Your Life touches the heart and soul of anyone who has a passion for running, and documents the inspirational life of Fred Lebow and the history of the New York City Marathon...

The Tribe

Diaspora 101. What can the most successful doll on the planet show us about being Jewish today? Narrated by Peter Coyote, THE TRIBE combines old school narration with a new school visual style. The film skillfully weaves together archival footage, graphics, animation, Barbie dioramas, and slam poetry to take audiences on an electric ride through the complex history of both the Barbie doll and the Jewish people...



*2007 Winner: International Jewish Topics: Argentina International Jewish Film Festival
*2008 Winner: Best Documentary Short: Cleveland International Film Festival
*2006 Indiewire's Sundance Critic's Choice

The First Basket

The First Basket explores the impact that basketball had on Jewish immigrants, as well as the profound influence that unsung Jewish basketball pioneers had on the evolution of basketball, as it grew from a game played with ash-cans on tenement steps to the second most popular sport in the world...

Surfwise

Like many outsiders Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz set out to realize a utopian dream. Abandoning a successful medical practice, he sought self-fulfillment by taking up the nomadic life of a surfer. But unlike other American searchers like Thoreau or Kerouac, Paskowitz took his wife, Juliette, and nine children along for the ride...

1:00 PM - RECEPTION
McArthur Hall, 50 Adams St., Biddeford
(Less than two blocks from City Theater)

3:00- The Beetle
City Theater, 205 Main St., Biddeford


Director Yishai Orian is married to Eliraz, but is in love with his old VW Beetle. Eliraz is about to give birth to their first child, and the soon-to-be mother is anxious to get rid of the old wreck, which she feels is unsuitable for the baby. As the argument heats up whether to junk or invest in rehabilitating the Beetle, Yishai goes on a journey that starts with the previous owners of the Beetle and ends with an attempt to save his old love...