JCC Film Festival – A Night of Shorts

The President’s Tailor (United States, Germany, 2024, 39 minutes, English): Martin Greenfield learned to sew while mending shirts for the Gestapo in Auschwitz when he was fifteen, and went on to make suits for U.S. presidents and stars. This is the story of America’s greatest tailor, and the bespoke menswear empire he left behind.

Fiddler on the Moon (United States, 2024, 30 minutes, English): This short finally answers the question that has plagued scientists, theologians, and comedians for millennia: Will Judaism survive in space? Starring Neil deGrasse Tyson, astronauts Jeffrey Hoffman and Jessica Meir, and a quorum of rabbis and researchers.

How to Make Challah (United States, 2023, 12 minutes, English): In 1975, director Sarah Rosen’s Aunt Jane filmed her 97-year-old immigrant grandmother baking challah on the Upper West Side. In 2022, Rosen continued this ritual, filming Aunt Jane (80) baking challah for the first time. The film includes archival footage from Jewish life at the turn of the 20th century.

Periphery (Canada, 2022, 27 minutes, English, Portuguese with English subtitles): Both a film and an evocative photographic project bearing witness to diversity in the Jewish community, it shares individuals’ multiracial and multiethnic narratives. The short film creates space to look, listen, and learn as they share their experiences and explore ideas of representation, intersectionality, ethnicity, race, and sexuality.

Mahjong and Mahashas (Australia, 2023, 15 minutes, English): This short documentary about Sydney’s Singaporean Sephardic community weaves together interviews, photographs, original music and contemporary content. The clatter of mahjong tiles; mouthwatering mahashas made of tomatoes stuffed with meat and rice, and cacophonous gatherings of extended family will immerse audiences in a culture rich in tradition, customs and heritage.

$12/person. Questions? Contact Laura Smith at lsmith@jfgd.net.