Santa Barbara Jewish Film Festival

Enjoy five days of world-class international and independent comedies, dramas, documentaries, and shorts from Israel, Europe, Canada, and the U.S. premiering for the first time in Santa Barbara.

Schedule of Events:

9:15 AM - 10:00 AM: Coffee and Bagel Breakfast

10:00 AM: All About the Levkoviches

Director Adam Breier
Hungary | 2024 | 85 Minutes | Hungarian and Hebrew with English subtitles

Told with delightfully mordant humor and a genuine warmth, this appealing domestic story from Hungarian filmmaker Adam Breier follows a Jewish family on the winding path toward reconciliation. Tamas (a gruff but tender Bezerédi Zoltán) is an aging boxing coach in present-day Budapest whose relationship with his son, Ivan (Szabó Kimmel Tamás), has frayed to the point of estrangement. After converting to Orthodox Judaism, Ivan moved to Israel, where he had a son, Ariel (Leo Gagel), whom Tamas has never met. Now, Ivan and Ariel have come back to Budapest for the funeral of Tamas’s wife, forcing father and son to face one another. Breier’s film is masterfully acted and directed, maintaining a perfectly balanced tone between comedy and pathos.

12:30 PM: Shorts Program

The Peacock that Passed Over
Lion of Zion
Girl No. 60427
Ganef
The Woman from Hamburg

3:30 PM: Unspoken

Director Jeremy Borison
USA | 2024 | 91 Minutes | English

Homosexuality wasn’t decriminalized in Germany until over 20 years after World War Two. There were gay men that were liberated from concentration camps and then put straight back into jail to continue the rest of their ‘sentences.’

This shocking piece of information, and the fact that most people have never heard it, is the context behind Unspoken. Noam and Jonah are in the midst of a research project for Jewish History class when they discover this history of persecution they had never heard of in their twelve years of Holocaust education. It’s one thing to not have in-depth knowledge of the Holocaust; it’s another to learn about the subject every year and not hear one mention of the word gay.

6:00 PM: Sabbath Queen

Director Sandi DuBowski
Israel | 105 Minutes | 2024

Sabbath Queen, a feature documentary filmed over 21 years, follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s epic journey as the dynastic heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis including the Chief Rabbis of Israel. 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.

Ticket Prices:

All Access Passes: $180
Single Tickets: $18

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