The tenth annual WinterFest, presented by the Jewish Film Institute, is an electrifying showcase of bold, independent films that expand and evolve the Jewish story across two action-packed days at the Vogue Theater in San Francisco. From innovative dramatic features to illuminating documentaries, WinterFest 2023 invites communities in the Bay Area and beyond to dive deep into tales that entertain, challenge, educate, and delight us.

Schedule:
Saturday February 25, 2023
12:00pm: Do I Need This?
Do I Need This? is a documentary film about American excess, and the stuff from which happiness is truly made. This timely, humorous, and moving film delicately interweaves the filmmaker’s complicated relationship with her family possessions, together with a journey into the homes and minds of her fellow Americans—from a hoarder to a Buddhist monk and a colorful group of characters in between. On the surface, it is a joy ride through American excessive consumption habits; at its core, it is a deep and genuine reflection on aging, family, and happiness. While the film is motivated by the filmmaker’s concern for the dire environmental challenges facing our planet, the focus is not on human consumers’ impact on nature, but instead on our human nature to consume. Viewers will never again have the luxury of buying something new without stopping to ask themselves, “do I really need this?”

12:00pm: Brother
Over the course of a year, filmmaker Joanna Rudnick records her phone conversations with her brother Matt in recovery from heroin addiction. What results is a raw exploration of a downward spiral from pills to heroin and the precipitating events that take him further away from her and their family. In the process of making this film together, Matt dies of an overdose from fentanyl intoxication during the pandemic. Left with the recording of his voice, she turns their conversation into an experimental, animated narrative that imagines his past trauma and a future where he is free from pain. Actor Lance Barber (Young Sheldon CBS) plays Joanna’s brother Matt and Joanna plays herself in a rotoscoped performance that crosses between past and present, fantasy and reality, documentary and narrative, and the boundaries that pull families apart.

2:45pm: A House Made of Splinters
In this war-worn and impoverished corner of Eastern Ukraine where addiction casts a long shadow, there sits a safe haven for children temporarily removed from their parents. A House Made of Splinters follows three kids awaiting their fate— will they go back or move on to a new home?— while a group of dedicated social workers create small moments of joy and respite from childhoods all but lost. Filmmaker Simon Lereng Wilmont returns with a follow-up to his acclaimed first feature, The Distant Barking of Dogs, offering a unique look into how the long-term consequences of war on a society already under strain impacts the most vulnerable. His is a poignant and deeply intimate portrait of a remarkable way station filled with care, support, and trust for a group of kids who are in desperate need of more.\

5:00pm: Other People's Children
When dedicated high school teacher Rachel (Virginie Efira) falls in love with Ali (Roschdy Zem), it's not long before she also falls for his 4-year-old daughter Leila. The adolescent giddiness of Rachel and Ali’s late-night rendezvous and secret sleepovers evolves into the familiar warmth of family picnics and after-school pickups. Although she feels like a mother, Rachel is not allowed to forget that Lelia is another woman’s daughter. She begins to long for a child of her own, but as a forty-something woman, she is abundantly aware that she has limited time to begin a family. Rachel must decide whether to embrace the inherent entanglements of her current situation, including the looming presence of Ali’s ex-wife Alice (Chiara Mastroanni), or strike out again on her own. Fresh off its U.S. premiere in January at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, Other People’s Children becomes a soulful, sexy, and resolutely grown-up story of the elusive quest for agency and belonging.

7:30pm: The Forger
Berlin, 1940. Cioma Schönhaus (Louis Hofmann, star of the hit Netflix series Dark) is a young Jewish man who won't let anyone take away his zest for life, especially not the Nazis. Since the best hiding spots are in plain sight, Cioma audaciously adopts the identity of a marine officer to escape being deported like his family before him. Drawing on his art school background, he joins a network of underground rescuers and becomes infamous for his masterfully forged IDs – created with just a brush, some ink, and a steady hand – that save the lives of hundreds of Jews by allowing them to escape the country. Meanwhile, he throws himself into the city's nightlife and even finds a fragile hope for love during the darkest moments of the war. His talent and propensity for boldness puts him in more and more danger, however, until his only chance of survival is one last forged document – with his own name on it. Based on a true story.

Sunday February 26, 2023
12:00pm: The Camera of Doctor Morris
An eccentric pilot in the British Armed Forces and his young wife flee a devastated post-WWII Europe and arrive in Eilat, the newly-founded Israel’s southernmost town. Situated on the Red Sea, at the intersection of Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, Eilat was home primarily to soldiers, port workers, and released prisoners. Then the Morris Family came to town. In their own secluded paradise, Dr. and Mrs. Morris begin to build their unconventional lives. They set up a British bubble and raise their children in the heart of the desert, all the while keeping deadly crocodiles as family pets. When a mysterious accident leads to an orphaned young girl, the family confronts a loved but forgotten ghost. Decades later, a treasure trove of dozens of 8mm reels—all of film captured by Dr. Morris - are uncovered hidden away in the home the family once shared. Through the archives of fully lived and filmed lives, combined with recounting from Morris family members themselves, their unusual and absorbing story unfolds.

2:10pm: The Levys of Monticello
Extended conversation featuring director Steven Pressman, Professor Marc Dollinger, and Professor Margalynne Armstrong, moderated by Rebecca Pierce.

When Thomas Jefferson died in 1826, he was mired in debt and his beloved home at Monticello was rapidly falling into disrepair. The Levys of Monticello tells the remarkable story of a Jewish family that wound up owning Monticello, while also saving it from ruin on two different occasions. In doing so, members of the Levy family also battled the ugly stains of antisemitism, while Monticello itself continued to confront its own bitter legacy of slavery and racism.

4:55pm: SHTTL
A filmmaker returns from Kyiv to his rural village to marry the love of his life. He is expected to marry the Rabbi’s daughter, which disrupts the balance of the whole town. In one unflinching shot, this film presents a day in the life of a Jewish village before it disappears. SHTTL is the story of the inhabitants of a Yiddish Ukrainian village at the border of Poland, 24 hours before the Nazi invasion, known as Operation Barbarossa. Today, there are no such villages in existence; the production fully reconstructed a traditional ‘Shtetl’ outside of Kyiv. Following the filming, the set was to be turned into a museum but has since been destroyed in the ongoing political crisis between Russia and Ukraine.

7:30pm: Barren
Feigi and Naftali are a young childless ultraorthodox couple living with Naftali’s parents. Naftali travels to Ukraine to pray for a child during the holiday at Rabbi Nachman’s grave. During Naftali’s absence a guest is invited to stay for the holiday with the family, he introduces himself as Rabbi Eliyahu, the barren healer. Using Feigi’s trust and desire for a child he rapes her claiming it will treat her infertility. When Naftali returns, the couple face a difficult crisis, which raises fundamental questions about faith and trust.

Date: February 25 - 26, 2023

Location: Vogue Theater - 3290 Sacramento Street, San Francisco, CA 94115

Tickets:
Jewish Film Institute Members: $15
General Public: $18
Student/Senior/ADA: $17

Passes
Jewish Film Institute Members: $95
General Public: $120

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