good morning welcome to mosaic. i am rabbi eric wise i am glad to be your host this morning. you just saw the trailer for the clip for san francisco jewish film festival in its 30th year. we are joined by the program director and creator. >> it is great to be back. >> this is the 30th year the

first jewish film festival in north america. >> the world. >> and still the largest. >> yes, because we have an amazing audience of 28 or 30,000 folks who come every year. and we are kind of pulling the stops out for our 30th anniversary we've got 54 -- 57 films from 14 countries and we are showing in five venues. we are named san francisco jewish film festival but start with a week in san francisco but have a movable feast we show in berkeley, palo alto, san raphael and start at the castro theatre july 24th. >> running july 24th through. >> august 9th. it is probably not only the oldest and largest jewish film festival, the longest. >> as well. >> quite an exhausting run. >> you have had so many different themes and touched on so many layers how form

influences jewish life what are some themes you have this year. >> well, briefly, it is a pretty eclectic reflection of what jewish identity, culture and history represents to us in this moment. cure rating a festival i think and jay can elaborate, it is what if vintage of that year bubbles up. we have some special planned programs this year a whole series of films about jewish gangsters, the under world of jewish life films from the 40s, 30s, 60s. 70s, and 90s. a lot of music and celebrator programs, a special program on writers lives called people of the book as well as of course what we thing of as the best sort of the cream of the crop of jewish oriented or subject features, fiction, documentaries and shorts. >> so we have a lot of clips to share with our audience this morning. the next clip we will look at is called saviour of the night.

>> yeah, we are very excited about this film and the event we have created around the film. it is called saviours in the night it is a film about the holocaust drama, and it is about a christian family that takes in a jewish mother and her daughter, hiding them on their farm, great personal risk to themselves for over 2 years. and it is based on the memoir of margaret speigel and we will have her as our guest coming up on the stage of the castro after the film is over. she is 98 years old. >> and still living in germany which is amazing. >> let's take a look. saviour in the night. ♪ [ music ]

>> so ... [ speaking in german ] that would be the opening night film. >> yes, july 24th at castro. we show it in our other venues but the special event jay was talking about not only will the director be here, and the actress who plays the daughter of the farm family that takes margaret in but also the woman who wrote the memoir who experienced what is depicted in the film will be with us in

person at age 98 knock on wood, she will be here. >> and where does she otherwise live? >> just out dusseldorf in germany. she was liberated at the end of the war and remained in germany so she is one of those rare jews who not only survived but who chose to remain. >> i know one of the other things is music and film we are about to take a bit of a break and leave with something. >> yeah, our closing night film in san francisco at the castro is july 29th, thursday this is a wonderful behind the scenes documentary, along with a concert movie focussing on the world music band the clasmatics

who have reinvented jewish movie over the past 30 years. it talks about trying to survive as an independent band in america today. many band members will be with us on thursday the 29th at the castro. >> fantastic join us in just a moment in the meantime enjoy them ♪[ music ] a person who plays the music i am a clasma. >> you are looked down on, lower than the waiter because they think they are a drug addict, going to have sex with my daughter, eat all the food. >> they are crazy people

good morning welcome back to mosaic i am rabbi ice i am

honored to be your -- wise i am honored to be your host. we are seeing clips from the san francisco jewish film festival. welcome back peter and jay. you have 58 films being shown through about 18 days and 101 screenings throughout the bay area. how do you choose what you show? >> with great difficulty. actually. what i was amazed by is the quality of the films we looked at and a lot of great films didn't make it into the festival because we had films that were either better than those or just worked better with our programming. quality is number one as far as i'm concerned, as far as all of us are concerned. along with peter there is joshua moore programming associate. we look at hundreds of films,

free screeners helping us, we go to other festivals screening films we are looking for the highest quality jewish films and that is kind of -- we have some freedom with what that means but it doesn't just mean a jewish film maker. >> does that mean the subthemes have a theme around tough guys and a theme around music and a theme around some holocaust oriented themes, some israel, arab oriented themes. those themes emerge in a more organic way as you make a choice on the quality of the film itself? >> it is a mixture with an archival theory like tough guys, images of jewish gangsters in film that was a preplanned program proposed by our former program director and still colleague, nancy fishman who more than a year and a half ago made a proposal not just to us at the festival but academy

of motion pictures arts and sciences and friends at the oscars to do a special retro speck tiff program looking at jewish gangsters in the movies. that was planned, researched thought through, it often takes more than a year to do. switch to a subject like holocaust films this year were extremely strong. in any given year there is always something dealing with new documentaries or features this year it happened to be a very strong crop of films including a new film from romania, a new film, the first film from romania, grubers journey, pro it can tore from czech republic, saviours in the night our opening night film. that bubbled up this year as did for example our program on riders lot. we saw a crop of documentaries looking at writers. we thought that is wonderful. >> we will see a clip of a film

called anita. >> it is our center piece film. it is from argentina. it is extremely moving film, it is about a jewish family, a woman and her daughter. her daughter is a woman who was born with down syndrome and through a series of circumstances she gets lost in the city of brunos airies and in many ways brings out the best of people who take her in for short periods of time. >> let's take a look at anita. >> anita [ speaking in spanish ]

jay, when you think of film in art form and as any art form reflects something in the culture and also influences something in the culture, how do you see something like a film like anita coming out of argentina with a woman who has down syndrome, and portraying jewish life differently than we might think of as the standard usual way of the way a jewish family is consulated but in

ways art form influences vocabulary and influences perception and both reflects perception. how do you see the jewish film festival kind of in that dialogue of advancing jewish life? >> that is a good question. well, you know, in a way, one thing our festival does is celebrate diversity and we have so many different films with so many different aspects of jewish life. i think some people might think jewish life being very insular but it is very dynamic and diverse and israel is a very diverse country. when we have films from argentina, for instance, it just shows that diversity and a woman with down syndrome. you know, it is part of humanity and i think that film has a lot of potential to display that diversity. >> i think -- i mean it is one of the things i enjoy about

going to the film festival before i became involved in it. one reason why the festival program, jay is a very talented film maker before he became involved professionally, his films as well as any of those we show case really do push at the boundaries of what we thing of as jewish identity or experience so a film like anita would play very well in any international film festival. when you put a jewish lens on it you start to pay attention differently without hopefully excluding any folks who would come to it simply because it is a wonderful film from latin and south america. we have three films from latin america this year all showed different aspects of jewish life, jewish life when you are a minority, jewish life on the fringes of the families experiences that are portrayed in the film. so that is kind of the fun when you are dealing with jewish content it could be about kind of the people who experience

it, religion, culture, history, food, music, we kind of get to do it all. >> wonderful. please join us in just a moment when we return here to mosaic

>> i had taken rosh shishana off for days because of respect. i would move up but this day there was no game the day before. >> welcome back to mosaic i am

rabbi wise and honored to be your host we are talking about san francisco jewish film festival. we just saw a clip on jews in baseball. >> yes, jews in baseball an american love story. we are very excited about this film. we have guest that is in the film, al rosen he was a slugger for cleveland indians in the 50s. and we also have the producer of the film, will hector a film that celebrates jews in baseball and surprisingly about a lot of other things too, prejudice and issues that you wouldn't normally associate with sports. so a film that really brings up pride in being a jew and something you don't really associate, at least u.s. -- in the u.s. we don't associate jews with sports as much as this film seems to celebrate it. which brings -- we have a lot

of films but we have tried to make the films events by bringing certain guests. in the last segment we showed anita. we are bringing the woman born with down syndrome, she is coming to the festival and she will be up on the castro stage after the screening of the film. >> along with a friend and acquaintance of hers and chaperon who runs a service organization in argentina, dealing with people born with downs syndrome. so it will be a chance to talk to this remarkable actress who performed the title role anita and learn a little bit about down syndrome. >> fantastic. we are about to look at yet another clip called a film unfinished. ♪ [ music ]

this is the story of a film that was never completed, a film to serve as propaganda for the third reich, that empire infatuated with the camera that knew so well to document its own evil, passionately, systematically like no other nation before it. full decade after the end of the war, east german archivists began for the first time to sort through what remained of hitlers propaganda machine. thousands of films discovered in the exact location in which they had been stashed, a concrete vault hidden in a forest. >> mm. the film festival dates are again. >> july 24th through august 9th. that film which is called a film unfinished is really the

story of the film about the war saw ghetto made by the nazis and as the clip showed, kind of uncovering what the truth is about that and we will show it in a number of venuethe director will be at the castro and also at berkeley, at the rota theatre and at our screening in palo alto which we show at the arts at palo alto square. some times we will have films you have more than one chance to see. as jay mentioned before the film jews in baseball will show in a few venues but the special event with al rosen and the producer will hector is at the castro our first screening sunday july 25th. >> we will take another quick break please join us in just a moment back here on mosaic ,,,,,

♪[ music ] welcome back to mosaic, good morning i am rabbi eric wise. jay, we just saw a clip of room and a half, part of the san

francisco jewish film festival offering. >> yes, this is one of the most creative in the group. this is by a russian film maker it is part of our people of the book spotlight we have a film about grace pali, ruth grubber the journalist on the exodus boat and we have also the film about amos oz and the israeli arab author and our freedom of expression awardee. >> we are really excited to bring him. there is a documentary about him that is part of this people of the book spotlight but he is the creator and master mind, irreverent master mind behind what is now really a runaway hit sitcom in israel called arab labor. we had the privilege of showing season one a year ago and this

year we have the international premier of season two. it is take no prisoners comedy he is called some times the arab israeli woody alan crossed with larry david, humour manages to make everybody wince and laugh at the same time, arabs and jews a like. you have so much diversity in this community on so many different levels among them all the ways we talk about israel and do our best to engage in civil dialogue around issues having to deal with israel i understand you are having a very important panel. >> yeah, in addition to some dozen or more films from israel, both documentaries and features including films about politics and israeli palestine conflict, sitcom like air rack labor features -- arab labor

features these films, ... we know they some times talk about and address difficult topics that need to be aired in the jewish community and community at large. we thought we would have a brief sort of community conversation, panel on thursday july 29th, free at the castro theatre at 11:30 a.m. calling it is dialogue possible how films help, talk about israel or not. some times films, theatre programs or lectures can polarize and some times they can bring people together. we are hoping to have a very civil and civic conversation about what remains a hot topic in jewish life in san francisco. 11:30 a.m. >> on thursday, a brown bag, come during your lunch hour it will be a panel discussion, film makers, experts on jewish engagement, with ari kellman from uc davis.

>> professor ari i said rabbi he is not. >> as always we have a comma in the conversation, please join us next time on mosaic and take advantage of all the film offerings at the jewish film festival. have a wonderful day i have fallen in love with making bird houses. caw caw! [ director ]what is that? that's a horrible crow. here are some things that i'll make as little portals for my bird friends. honestly, i'd love to do this for the rest of my life so i have to take care of myself. [ male announcer ] to keep doing what you love, keep your heart healthy. cheerios can help. the whole grain oats can help lower cholesterol. [ bob ] makes you feel ageless. brrrbb! [ male announcer ] it's simple, love your heart so you can do what you love. what do you love? see how cheerios can help you do it. [ bob ] squak! [ kid 1 ] wanna know somwe love summertime fun!s?

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