The Michiana Jewish Film Festival offers superb, cutting-edge, and award-winning films from around the world to the Michiana region, facilitating a multifaceted exploration of Jewish identity, community, culture, and history.

Film Schedule:

Monday, May 12, 2025

7:00 PM - Telling Nonie / 06:30

Telling Nonie (2023)
Directed by Paz Schwartz, Uriel Sinai
Documentary, 51 minutes, DCP
In English and Hebrew with English subtitles

Tormented by his role in a 1950s Gaza assassination, Geizi Tsafrir, an elderly Israeli agent, seeks redemption. Reflecting on his time with Shin Bet (Israeli Secret Service) and the killing of an Egyptian lieutenant colonel, he decides to confront his past.

06:30 (2024)
Directed by Alon Daniel
Documentary, 65 minutes, DCP
In Hebrew with English subtitles

Capturing the harrowing events of the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel with profound sensitivity, this documentary features firsthand accounts from survivors at seven different attack sites, each story vividly brought to life through the creative use of miniature models and animations.

?Tuesday, May 13, 2025

5:30 PM - Never Alone

Directed by Klaus Härö
With Satu Tuuli Karhu, Ville Virtanen, Ragnar Halmann
Drama, 85 minutes, DCP
In English and Swedish, Yiddish, Finnish, German, and Swedish 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) risks everything to protect the refugee community. This powerful film showcases courage, resilience, and the fight for hope amidst overwhelming adversity. From the celebrated director Klaus Härö, known for Oscar-shortlisted The Fencer and Golden Globe-nominated My Sailor, My Love, comes a powerful true story of resilience and defiance. Based on actual events during World War II, Never Alone shines a light on the plight of Jewish refugees seeking sanctuary in Finland and the unwavering hero who risked everything to protect them.

8:00 PM - Yaniv

Directed by Amnon Carmi
With Catherine Curtin, Christine McBurney, Scott Zimmerman
Comedy, 85 minutes, DCP
In English

Preceded by a Short Film: The Father, The Son, and The Rav Kalmenson (2023)

A high school teacher in the Bronx loses funding for the school musical and convinces his fellow statistics teacher—secretly a recovering gambling addict—to help him cheat at an underground card game run by the Hasidic Jewish community. The plan goes awry with mounting consequences, but help comes at an unexpected time from the least likely people.

?Wednesday, May 14, 2025

?5:30 PM - 999: The Forgotten Girls

Directed by Heather Dune Macadam, Beatriz Calleja
Documentary, 90 minutes, DCP
In English

Best-selling author and historian Heather Dune Macadam has adapted her acclaimed book 999 into a powerful documentary that sheds light on a wrenching true story. In March 1942, nearly 1,000 young Slovak Jewish women, mostly teenagers, told by their government that they were embarking on a volunteer work assignment, were instead illegally deported to Auschwitz on what was the first Jewish transport to the Nazi death camp. Rather than strictly focus on the suffering and death experienced by most of the girls, Macadam tells stories of a small group who survived against all odds, even under unimaginable conditions that lasted more than three grueling years. A film of deep research and vivid detail, 999: The Forgotten Girls ensures that these women will no longer be a historical footnote.

8:00 PM - Bad Shabbos

Directed by Daniel Robbins
With Kyra Sedgwick, Cliff "Method Man" Smith, David Paymer
Comedy, 84 minutes, DCP
In English

Preceded by a Short Film: No Harm Done (2024)

When David and his fiance, Meg, gather for his family's traditional Shabbat dinner on New York's Upper West Side, things spiral faster than you can say "hamotzi" when an accidental death (or... murder?) derails the evening entirely. With Meg's devoutly Catholic parents due any moment to meet David's very Jewish family, soon Shabbat becomes a comedy of biblical proportions. Winner of the Audience Award at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival.

?Thursday, May 15, 2025

?7:00 PM - Sabbath Queen

Directed by Sandi Simcha Dubowski
Documentary, 105 minutes, DCP
In English and Hebrew and Yiddish with English subtitles

Sabbath Queen, a 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 and the founder of Lab/Shul—an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation. Sabbath Queen joins Amichai on a lifelong quest to creatively and radically reinvent religion and ritual, challenge patriarchy and supremacy, champion interfaith love, and stand up for peace, ceasefire, and an end to the Occupation in Israel/Palestine. The film interrogates what Jewish survival means in a difficult rapidly changing 21st century.

Fest Date: May 12 - 15, 2025

Location: DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, Browning Cinema - 100 Performing Arts Center Notre Dame, IN 46556

Click here to buy tickets.

Click here for more information.