2025 JEWISH FILM SERIES
All films will be shown live in the Martha's Vineyard Hebrew Center at 7:30 PM. They will not be streamed.
Admission is free for Summer Institute Sponsors and Hebrew Center members and $10 for the general public. No advance reservations are required.
JULY 13 - HOLDING LIAT
A documentary offering a rare look at the personal and political choices made by two elderly parents whose daughter Liat Beinin Atzili was kidnapped from her kibbutz and taken hostage on October 7. Made by relative Brandon Kramer, the film reveals how the pain of hostage families can be weaponized and how different family members cope with their tragedy.
- Winner, Berlinale Best Documentary Award
JULY 20 - YIDDISHLAND
The joyous and hopeful movie we have all been waiting for. A cross - cultural choir performs yiddish songs at the leading Yiddish Arts Festival in Germany. A rousing documentary about the global renaissance of the endangered yiddish language and how its performers, both jewish and non- jewish, are finding solace, inspiration and identity in its rich traditions. Performances at the leading Yiddish Arts Festival which takes place in Germany highlights that yiddish is alive and flourishing.
- Nominee: Documentary Awards, Sydney Film Festival 2024
JULY 27 - SODA
An elegant and stylish woman arrives in 1950’s Israel to live amongst a close-knit community of holocaust survivors and sets off a storm of emotions. Many in this group were resistance fighters and Eva (played by Rotem Sela) is suspected of having been a Kapo. Shalom played by Lior Raz (Fauda) is torn between his strong attraction to her and his loyalty to his wife and community. Themes of guilt and survival are brilliantly portrayed.
- Winner 3 Ophir Awards (Israeli Film Academy)
AUGUST 4 - SABBATH QUEEN
NOTE: This is a Monday and not our usual Sunday screening.
Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie's epic journey as the dynastic heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis including the Chief Rabbis of Israel is captured over 21 years of filming. He is torn between rejecting and embracing his destiny and becomes a drag-queen rebel, a queer bio-dad and the founder of Lab/Shul—an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation. Amichai is 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.
- Winner: Hamptons International Film Festival, Woodstock Film Festival
- Nominee: Zurich Tribecca, Nashville Film Festival
AUGUST 10 - COEXISTENCE MY ASS
Jewish-Israeli-Iranian comedian Noam Shuster Eliassi’s one woman show tackles the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She embarks on a passionate, hopeful mission to both entertain and explore jewish-palestinian coexistence. She addresses the messiness of complex identities and introduces the power of laughter into heartbreakingly difficult issues of conflict. She finds her themes of peace and equal rights upended by the Oct 7 attack and Gaza war.
- Winner: Grand Jury Prize Sundance World Cinema Human Rights In Motion Award