Song of a Jewish Cowboy
18m · Documentary
Scott Gerber, an unlikely mix of Yiddish and cowboy cultures, learned Yiddish and progressive songs from his mother and grandmother. A descendant of the left wing Petaluma chicken ranchers, Scott carries on the Yiddish and ranching traditions and proudly works in agriculture today.
More Like This
Trailers Schmailers
2002 · ★ 7
From the Marx Brothers to Schindler's List, this compilation of Jewish film trailers offers a glimpse at the history of Jews in American cinema. A mixture of humor, social commentary, and drama, these original coming attractions trailers offer insight into the relationship between Hollywood's studio marketing departments and the growing visibility of Jews in American life. Trailers Schmailers includes spotlights on Woody Allen and Barbra Streisand, an overview of films about New York Jewish life, a look at the evolution of films about the holocaust, and more.
More info →
Dear Thirteen
2022
A nuanced portrait of a new generation, Dear Thirteen is a cinematic time capsule of coming of age in today’s world. Through the eyes of nine thirteen-year-olds, we see how pressing social, geographical and political challenges are shaping, and being shaped by, young people: rising anti-Semitism in Europe, guns in America, gender identity and racial divisions across Australia and Asia. With no adult commentary outside the filmmaker, Dear Thirteen offers an intimate view into the universal uncertainty inherent in growing up.
More info →Divan
2003 · ★ 5
Pearl Gluck travels to Hungary to retrieve a turn-of-the-century family heirloom: a couch upon which esteemed rabbis once slept. En route for the ancestral divan, Pearl encounters a colorful cast of characters who provide guidance and inspiration.
More info →
Bloodlines
2008
A moving meditation on guilt and reconciliation, Bloodlines explores the unwritten cost of war and genocide on future generations - of both victims and perpetrators. As Bettina Goering, grandniece of Nazi war criminal Herman Goering, searches for a way to come to terms with her heritage, she meets Ruth Rich, a painter and daughter of Holocaust survivors. At a time when seemingly irreconcilable divisions between groups are tearing the world apart, this deeply hopeful film is a beautiful testament to the power of dialogue and post-conflict reconciliation.
More info →
Our Aotearoa
2022
An animated documentary that speaks to immigrants' personal experiences living in Aotearoa, exploring themes of racism, discrimination, loss, loneliness, and maintaining cultural ties while living in another country.
More info →
YOU WILL NOT REPLACE US
2024
A documentary drama addressing the shared tribulations and historical unity between Black and Jewish Americans.
More info →
Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas
2017 · ★ 8
An offbeat, irreverent musical documentary that tells the story of a group of Jewish songwriters, including Irving Berlin, Mel Tormé, Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, Gloria Shayne Baker and Johnny Marks, who wrote the soundtrack to Christianity’s most musical holiday. It’s an amazing tale of immigrant outsiders who became irreplaceable players in pop culture’s mainstream – a generation of songwriters who found in Christmas the perfect holiday in which to imagine a better world, and for at least one day a year, make us believe.
More info →
The Great Yiddish Love
2002
Set in Berlin and New York's Lower East Side, The Great Yiddish Love stars the self-exiled Marlene Dietrich and her Nazi-endorsed replacement, Zarah Leander. It is a melodrama of love, emigration, and betrayal reassembled from Hollywood, German Ufa and Yiddish films from the 1930s and 40s.
More info →
At Home in Utopia
2008
During the economic boom of the 1920s, thousands of immigrant Jewish factory workers managed to build the house of their dreams, a cooperative apartment complex at the edge of Bronx Park. Then they were hit by the Great Depression. At Home in Utopia bears witness to an epic social experiment across two generations in the Coops - a place known as "little Moscow" - where people tried to change the American dream into one that included racial justice and workers' rights.
More info →
God Speaks Yiddish
★ 10
Forty years after leaving his ultra-Orthodox roots, journalist Tuvia Tenenbom returns to Jerusalem's Mea Shearim. With rare access, he uncovers a world that remains a mystery to outsiders.
More info →