SAN DIEGO (Press Release) – The 27th Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival presented by the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center, Jacobs Family Campus, will run February 8-19, 2017. The 12-day Festival is the largest Jewish cultural event in San Diego and draws over 17,000 attendees annually to more than 70 film screenings. The Festival features San Diego film premieres, international guest artists and filmmakers local and international. Screenings will be shown at 5 locations.
This year the festival will showcase a total of 62 films of the best contemporary Jewish themed films from around the world celebrating life, human rights, and freedom of expression. This year the emphasis is on Our Lives Projected because “we show films that mirror the experience that many in our audience have had themselves or may be hearing about for the first time; it’s also intended to expand the notion of “our lives” to show that we are a diverse and divergent community,” according to Festival Director, Jacqueline Silverman.
The mission of the Film Festival is to offer outstanding world cinema that promotes awareness, appreciation and pride in the diversity of the Jewish people to attendees of the community at large. Festival programs aim to educate and illuminate through evocative, independent fiction and documentary films that portray the Jewish experience from current to historic global perspectives.
Highlights for this year’s event will include a private advance screening on February 8, 2017 at 7 pm for the film festival underwriters to Rosenwald, directed by Aviva Kempner who will be in attendance and receive a SDJFF Outstanding Filmmaking Award at the David & Dorothea Garfield Theatre, Lawrence Family JCC. This year’s official opening night on February 9th at the Reading Cinemas Town Square at 7 pm will feature a San Diego premiere of On the Map, directed by Dani Menkin and featuring local celebrity Bill Walton. Mr. Menkin will be in attendance. The official closing night film at the Reading Cinemas Town Square will be Body and Soul: An American Bridge directed by Robert Philipson, which focuses on the early performance history of the jazz standard “Body and Soul” composed by a Jewish composer Johnny Green and how this song smashed the barriers between African Americans and American Jews. Mr. Philipson will be in attendance.
On February 13, 2017 a collection of international short films in 4 different programs begins at 11:00 am to 8:00 pm and will be screened at the ArcLight La Jolla.
Another highlight on February 15th is the centerpiece film The People vs. Fritz Bauer, directed by Lars Kraume, an historical thriller that dramatizes the obstacles that tenacious state attorney general Bauer faced in prosecuting the architects of Auschwitz. Screening at 8 pm at the Reading Cinemas Town Square.
A total collection of 62 films in this year’s film line-up will be screened at the following theaters:
Reading Cinemas Town Square 14 – 4665 Clairemont Drive, San Diego; ArcLight La Jolla – 4425 La Jolla Village Drive, San Diego (west side of Westfield UTC mall); Carlsbad Village Theatre – 2822 State St., Carlsbad; Edwards San Marcos Stadium 18 – 1180 West San Marcos Blvd, San Marcos (next to Restaurant Row); David and Dorothea Garfield Theatre, Lawrence Family JCC, 4126 Executive Drive, La Jolla.
For tickets or information call 858-362-1348 or visit www.sdjff.org.
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Preceding provided by the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture based at the Lawrence Family JCC.