Louisville Jewish Film Festival: Sabbath Queen

This feature documentary, filmed over 21 years, follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s epic journey as the dynastic heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis including the Chief Rabbis of Israel. He is torn between rejecting and embracing his destiny and becomes a drag-queen rebel, a queer bio-dad and the founder of Lab/Shul—an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation. Read More >

Louisville Jewish Film Festival: Running On Sand

Eritrean refugee Aumari is slated for deportation from Israel on a technicality. After ducking immigration authorities at the airport, he becomes the unlikely and very perplexed recipient of a hero’s welcome. He is mistaken for an eagerly anticipated Nigerian soccer player who is supposed to arrive at the same time, Though lacking a fundamental knowledge of the sport, he finds himself the face of the franchise. Read More >

Louisville Jewish Film Festival: No Name Restaurant

In this spirited and absurdist culture-clash comedy, two very different men must work together to survive in the Sinai Desert. One is the lost and befuddled Ben, an ultra-Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn who has missed his flight to Alexandria, where he is to help the dwindling Jewish community in need of a 10th man for its Passover celebration. The other is the dyspeptic Adel, a Bedouin man trying to track down his runaway camel. The men travel across the desert on foot, sharing details of their personal lives and love of food, giving their plans a chance to go increasingly haywire. Read More >

Louisville Jewish Film Festival: Where Life Begins

An ultra-orthodox Jewish family from Aix-les-Bains comes to a farm in Calabria for a brief stay every year to carry out a sacred mission: harvesting etrog citrons for Sukkot.  When Elio, the farm owner, meets Esther, the rabbi’s daughter, who is tired of the constraints imposed by her religion, their relationship sparks a lasting change for each of them.   Read More >

Louisville Jewish Film Festival: The Boy in the Woods (Virtual)

The Boy in the Woods follows the true story of Max, a Jewish boy escaping Nazi persecution. After he is separated from his family, Max finds temporary refuge with a Christian peasant (Richard Armitage). After a tense stand-off with Nazi police. Max must live in the woods and learn to survive alone in a landscape crawling with Jew-hunters and, partisans and haunted by ghosts. He and Yanek, another boy in hiding like Max, rescue a baby girl, but their heroic act comes at a tragic price. Based on the best-selling memoir by Holocaust survivor Maxwell Smart.  Read More >

Louisville Jewish Film Festival: No Name Restaurant (Virtual)

In this spirited and absurdist culture-clash comedy, two very different men must work together to survive in the Sinai Desert. One is the lost and befuddled Ben, an ultra-Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn who has missed his flight to Alexandria, where he is to help the dwindling Jewish community in need of a 10th man for its Passover celebration. The other is the dyspeptic Adel, a Bedouin man trying to track down his runaway camel. The men travel across the desert on foot, sharing details of their personal lives and love of food, giving their plans a chance to go increasingly haywire. Read More >

Louisville Jewish Film Festival: The Boy in the Woods

The Boy in the Woods follows the true story of Max, a Jewish boy escaping Nazi persecution. After he is separated from his family, Max finds temporary refuge with a Christian peasant (Richard Armitage). After a tense stand-off with Nazi police. Max must live in the woods and learn to survive alone in a landscape crawling with Jew-hunters and, partisans and haunted by ghosts. He and Yanek, another boy in hiding like Max, rescue a baby girl, but their heroic act comes at a tragic price. Based on the best-selling memoir by Holocaust survivor Maxwell Smart.  Read More >