SAN DIEGO (Press Release) – The 2025 Blue Water Film Festival (BWFF) will host a Shabbat Dinner Movie Night as part of its 6th annual festival.
A special Shabbat Dinner Movie Night will be held on Friday, March 21 at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center’s Garfield Theatre in La Jolla. The event will kick off at 5 PM with opening remarks by Consul General of Austria Michael Postl followed by a Shabbat family style
dinner. Once dinner is completed, screenings of Ripple Effect, Wild City, and San Diego: America’s Wildest City will be shown followed by Q&A discussions with the attending filmmakers.
Presented by the Blue Water Institute, BWFF runs March 20-23 at various locations throughout San Diego in celebration of United Nations World Water Day. The four-day event will showcase features, shorts and animated films with a total of 32 films, comprising 8 features, 16 shorts and 8 animated films.
“As a fellow American Greek Jew, I am thrilled to bring the Jewish tradition of the ‘Ocean by the Sea’ Shabbat dinner to the La Jolla community and a deeper reflection to the Blue Water Film Festival,” notes BWFF Founder Greg Reitman, “It represents a community gathering, a hallmark
of what the festival does.”
Actor (Stranger Things, Oppenheimer) and Environmentalist Matthew Modine is the filmmaker of Ripple Effect, a series of short episodes that follows Matthew on a quest to find what Jacques Cousteau called “wavemakers” – extraordinary people making bold attempts to save
the planet before it’s too late. Striking a balance between activism and adventure, Modine and the heroes he visits open our eyes to the wonders of the ocean, the bounty of the land, and all that stands in the way of a prosperous world.
Modine will also be awarded with the Visionary Award at BWFF’s Blue Water Awards on Sunday, March 23.
Wild City, from Director Roni Avni, is a short film about the historical shift of power in Haifa’s city hall, the relationship between the city’s residents and the local wild boars becoming more intense than ever. Through several points of view, five years and two election campaigns, the
film documents this local affair, which encapsulates worldviews, fears, nostalgia and questions about nature and human nature.
San Diego: America’s Wildest City comes from local Ocean Beach/Point Loma based filmmakers Nathan Dappen and David Hutchinson. San Diego’s sand, surf, and flawless weather attract millions of visitors each year. But it isn’t just “America’s Finest City” – it’s also America’s wildest! Mountains, ocean, and desert collide here to create the most biodiverse landscape in America. But to survive in an ecosystem utterly transformed by their 3.3 million human neighbors, wildlife must adapt or perish.
To purchase tickets, click here.
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Preceding provided by Blue Water Film Festival