Film Pittsburgh's JFilm Festival, the largest Jewish cultural event in the region, will return to theaters April 24-May 4, 2025. For 32 years, JFilm has showcased Jewish-themed, independent feature films from around the globe.

Schedule of Events:

Thursday, April 24, 2025

6:30 pm: Midas Man With Cocktail Reception

Location - The Oaks Theater
Drama - English

Our Opening Night film is a stylish musical biopic that explores the life of Brian Epstein, the visionary Jewish manager whose bold guidance propelled the Beatles to their meteoric rise and global stardom.

Friday, April 25, 2025

7:00 pm: Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause

Location - The Oaks Theater
Drama - English

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, Charles Grodin's amazing life is beautifully honored in director James Freedman's new documentary, Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause. Known for his sharp wit and incredible depth as an actor, Grodin is often remembered for his brilliant performances in The Heartbreak Kid and Midnight Run. A master in the art of deadpan, he delivered some of the most hilarious performances of his career during his numerous appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman. But in an incredibly admirable twist, Grodin used his role as a CNBC talk show host to launch himself into the role of social activist. He became a fierce champion for prison reform and for the last twenty years of his life worked tirelessly to get several unfairly convicted women out of prison, many of whom were mothers of color with children at home. A true Pittsburgh hometown hero, his life story starts as a steady ripple of laughter that continues to rise only to surprise everyone and become a tidal wave of hope.

Official Selection: World Premiere – Atlanta Jewish Film Festival

Saturday, April 26, 2025

1:30 pm: Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire

Location - The Oaks Theater
Documentary - English - French - German - Hebrew - with English subtitles

Through poignant detail and compelling visuals, this documentary pays homage to Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, whose renowned literary influence and human rights advocacy work has ensured the Holocaust will never be forgotten, nor will humanity's responsibility to honor the victims

4:30 pm: Auction

Location - The Oaks Theater
Drama - English - French - German - with English subtitles

Auctioneer and modern art appraiser André lives, breathes, and sleeps his work. An expert in his field, he knows how to spot and close substantial deals with hefty payouts. That is, until he discovers a genuine Egon Schiele painting that was thought to be lost for nearly 70 years.

7:00 pm: Come Closer

Location - The Oaks Theater
Drama - Hebrew - with English subtitles

Winner of Israel's Ophir Award for Best Picture and their official selection for the Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film, Come Closer is a beautiful exploration of love, loss, and resilience.

Sunday, April 27, 2025

1:30 pm: Soul of a Nation

Location - The Oaks Theater
Documentary - English - Hebrew - with English subtitles

Soul of a Nation is an inspiring and eye-opening film that delves into Israel's most perilous chapter in recent history - a period defined by profound internal divisions, political unrest, and external threats that pushed the nation to the brink of collapse.

4:30 pm: Never Alone - Followed by Film Schmooze

Location - The Oaks Theater
Drama - Finnish - with English subtitles

Never Alone tells the gripping story of Jewish refugees seeking safety in Finland during WWII. As Nazi influence grows, the Finnish-Jewish businessman Abraham Stiller (Ville Virtanen, Netflix's Bordertown) risks everything to protect the refugee community.

7:00 pm: Mazel Tov

Location - The Oaks Theater
Drama - Comedy - Spanish - with English subtitles

Hoping to rebuild family ties with his estranged father and brothers, Dario travels from the US to his hometown in Argentina to attend his sister Daniela's wedding and his niece's Bat Mitzvah. As he and his three siblings make their way home, their father has a sudden stroke and passes away.

Monday, April 28, 2025

7:00 pm: The Blond Boy from the Casbah

Location - The Oaks Theater
Drama - Comedy - French - with English subtitles

Antoine, a passionate and celebrated filmmaker, returns to his birthplace of Algiers accompanied by his young son. There to present his new film, an account of his mid-20th century childhood in Algeria during the country's civil war, he and his son explore the city igniting a flood of nostalgia.

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

7:00 pm: Sabbath Queen - Followed by Q&A

Location - The Oaks Theater
Documentary - English - Hebrew - Yiddish - with English subtitles

As a successor in a historied Ashkenazi rabbinic dynasty, Amichai Lau-Lavie's life was paved with expectations from birth. However, conflicted by the rules of his Orthodox Jewish upbringing and a desire to live his life truthfully and authentically, Amichai chose to forge his own path and break new ground

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

7:00 pm: Yaniv

Location - The Oaks Theater
English

What do you do when the cards aren't in your favor? Change the game. When high school teacher Barry Bernstein loses funding for the annual school musical, he enlists the help of his colleague Jonah to cheat in an underground card game run by the Hasidic Jewish community.

Thursday, May 1, 2025

7:00 pm: Ain't No Back to a Merry-Go-Round - Followed by Film Schmooze

Location - The Oaks Theater
Documentary - English

In June of 1960, despite the obstacles of sweltering summer heat and the violence of American Nazi Party counter-protestors, a contingent of Black students from Howard University found themselves joined by white suburbanites, many of whom were Jewish to protest the segregated Glen Echo Amusement Park

Friday, May 2, 2025

7:00 pm: The Glory of Life

Location - The Oaks Theater
Drama - German - with English subtitles

In the summer of 1923, amid his fight against tuberculosis, writer Franz Kafka travels to the seaside resort Graal-Müritz to improve his living conditions-and leaves with an understanding of the glory of life. After meeting Dora Diamant, a dancer who works at the resort, Kafka-who struggles with his overbearing

Saturday, May 3, 2025

1:30 pm: All God's Children - Followed by Q&A

Location - McConomy Auditorium
Documentary - English

Facing ever-growing tensions between Jewish and Black Brooklynites and concerned about the future, a pair of spiritual leaders decide to embark on an experimental journey of interfaith exploration. Acclaimed filmmaker Ondi Timoner follows her sister, activist Rabbi Rachel Timoner, and her Congregation

4:30 pm: Day Trippers

Location - McConomy Auditorium
Comedy - Drama - English - Hebrew - with English subtitles

Zoe, a young British teen roaming the streets of Amsterdam and avoiding her mother's funeral, randomly meets and enlists the help of, Ruth, an Israeli woman avoiding her own wedding, to secure some hallucinogenic mushrooms.

7:00 pm: Bad Shabbos

Location - McConomy Auditorium
Comedy - English

Meeting the parents is already hard enough for a newly engaged couple, without throwing an accidental murder into the mix. When interfaith couple David and Meg plan to introduce their families to one another during a traditional Shabbos dinner, tensions are high from the beginning and continue to grow

Sunday, May 4, 2025

3:15 pm: Matchmaking

Location - The Oaks Theater
Hebrew - Yiddish - with English subtitles

Like a modern-day Romeo, Moti (Amit Rahav from Netflix's Unorthodox) falls head over heels for his sister's friend Nechama, but isn't allowed to date the charming, beautiful young woman because she comes from a Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) family, not an Ashkenazi (European) family like his own.

5:30 pm: Matchmaking 2

Location - The Oaks Theater
Comedy - Hebrew - with English subtitles

Our Closing Day double feature concludes with, Matchmaking 2, Israel's biggest box office hit of the past year. This charming sequel finds Baruch at age 28, considered "over the hill" in the ultra-Orthodox world, desperately hoping to find his match.

Date:
April 24 - May 4, 2025

Location:
McConomy Auditorium, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
The Oaks Theater, 310 Allegheny River Blvd, Oakmont, PA 15139

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