GOLDA gang, film festival season is arriving in New York this week—and Jewish storytelling is taking center stage.
Over the next few weeks, the city will be filled with opportunities to discover and support Jewish and Israeli voices on the big screen. Today we’re bringing you our guide to the films we’re most excited about.
This guide comes courtesy of Brandon Schuster, who in addition to being GOLDA’s genius social media manager is a major film buff. If you follow our perfectly hot pink Instagram, that’s all Brandon. If you’ve watched one of our pink mic videos—or seen us filming IRL—it’s Brandon behind the camera. He’s the best. His calendar is always filled with film screenings, but especially so the next few weeks. He’s sharing the goods below to help us support the Jewish stories, filmmakers, and festivals bringing these voices to audiences across New York—and hopefully soon to a city near you!
In addition to Tribeca Festival and Brooklyn Film Festival, Brandon suggests checking out the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, which celebrates Sephardic and Mizrahi stories from around the world, and the Israel Film Center Festival, which is returning for its 14th year with a lineup films screening across 10 venues throughout the New York metro area. He also recommends NewFest Pride, a celebration of LGBTQ+ stories and boundary-pushing films as the city kicks off Pride Month.
A Jewish Guide to Film Festival Season
One of the breakout gems of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Tell Me Everything comes from Moshe Rosenthal, one of Israel’s most exciting new filmmakers, and tells an emotionally charged coming-of-age story that follows a Jewish boy nearing his bar mitzvah as he’s thrust into a collision of family secrets and masculinity in 1980s Israel.
Fresh off her history-making Coachella performance as the first Israeli female artist to play the festival, Noga Erez’s next stop is NYC for the world premiere of Noga, a new documentary following the groundbreaking musician as she navigates rising global fame amid war back home and growing tensions with her longtime collaborator.
Comedian Elon Gold stars in the latest film from Gidi Dar, best known for Ushpizin, one of Israel’s most beloved films of all time. The Wedding Entertainer: The Tale of Moishe Badhan tells the story of a disgraced Hasidic wedding entertainer who gets one last shot at redemption when he’s forced to work alongside a younger, flashier rival.
Hot off winning the ADL Stand Up Award at this year’s Santa Barbara International Film Festival, rising star Noam Ash wrote and stars alongside Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s Caroline Aaron in Bookends, a heartfelt comedy about a gay novelist who moves in with his Holocaust survivor grandfather after a breakup.
From Jewish director Dori Berinstein, Couture to the Max follows child fashion prodigy Max Alexander, the Guinness World Record holder for the youngest person to design a runway show, whose sustainable creations have attracted A-list supporters like Sharon Stone and Debra Messing, his biggest fan and recent collaborator on a coat benefiting Holocaust remembrance, all while carrying forward a family legacy that began with his great-grandfather arriving in North America with just $5 and a pair of sewing shears in his pocket.
Trailblazing Orthodox and Mizrahi women’s rights activist Esty Bitton Shushan makes her directorial debut with Book of Ruth, a new drama offering an intimate female lens into the ultra-Orthodox world through the story of a young mother whose life is upended by an unthinkable tragedy.
Israeli superstar Gal Gadot stars alongside Oscar Isaac, Gerard Butler, and a star-studded ensemble in The Hand of Dante, Jewish artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel’s ambitious “ode to art and the ineffability of creativity.”
Winner of the top prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival, Netalie Braun’s Oxygen follows a single Jewish mother in Israel who takes matters into her own hands to protect her 21-year-old son from returning to the battlefront as a new war erupts just as he nears the finish line for his army discharge.
Made in Brooklyn with an almost entirely Jewish cast and crew, Mishpucha follows a young woman who must face the Jewish family that shunned her in order to fulfill her beloved Bubbie’s dying wishes.
Alison Brie and two-time Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman bring some serious Jewish star power to The Revisionist, a new psychological drama about a successful novelist who begins to blur the line between fiction and reality as she spirals amid a crippling case of writer’s block.
Opening this year’s Israel Film Center Festival, Israeli director Amichai Greenberg’s Love, Statistically Speaking turns a stolen savings mystery into a funny, heartfelt journey between a widowed actuary and his granddaughter.
Thanks to Brandon Schuster for putting this guide together! You can follow along with all of Brandon’s Israeli movie picks over at Lettrboxed.
Speaking of Jewish Storytelling! From Our Partner:
For all the writers out there: If your novel or fiction project centers Jewish life, culture, or themes, check out The Mindich Fellowship for Jewish Fiction, part of Miami Book Fair’s Emerging Writer Fellowship. Fellows get a generous stipend, mentorship, and a year-long period of uninterrupted writing time in Miami. The application deadline is May 31; you can find out more information and apply here.
GOLDA Events
Tuesday, May 26 — New York City: We’re back with another GOLDA Mahjong Night on the Upper East Side and we have a few spots left for open play. Sign up here.
Wednesday, May 27 — New York City: We’re kicking off our GOLDA residency at New York City’s Harmonie Club. I’ll be in conversation with three of my favorite contemporary Jewish authors—Rachel Kadish (The Weight of Ink), Menachem Kaiser (Plunder), and GOLDA Girls’ Esther Chehebar (Sisters of Fortune)—about their work and the rich tradition of Jewish storytelling. Get your ticket here.
Want to bring GOLDA to your community? Get in touch at [email protected].
Stay GOLDA,
Stephanie