The 17th Annual Louisville Jewish Film Festival strives to show the richness and diversity of the Jewish experience by presenting the best contemporary international films. Through feature films, shorts, documentaries and student films, as well as conversations with guest speakers, the festival explores Jewish identity with the hope of increasing tolerance and educating its audiences. Some of the films we have shown have gone on to be nominated for Academy Awards and remade into Hollywood films. Many of them have received Israel's highest awards for films. Since our beginning over 100 outstanding films have been shown at a variety of venues accompanied by exciting speakers and receptions.

*Tickets will be available 1 hour prior to the film at the venue. They can be purchased online, by phone, or at JCC

Films:

Run Boy Run
Opening Night | Thursday, February 5, 7 p.m.
February 5, 7 p.m., & February 15, 11:30 p.m. * Village 8 Theatres
Opening film at Atlanta Jewish Film Festival 
A saga of courage and compassion, this is the miraculous true story of a 9-year-old Polish boy who flees from the Warsaw ghetto in 1942. He survives in the woods, eludes SS patrols, and charms locals into providing shelter, while keeping alive his Jewish faith.
German, Polish, Yiddish, Russian 108 min.

CenterStage & Louisville Jewish Film Festival present A Musical Celebration of the 125th Anniversary of the JCC
Saturday, February 7, 7:30 p.m.
JCC, $25 in advance, $28 at the door, $12 student
A Peabody award-winning documentary. This special evening will feature Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy, and CenterStage actors singing show tunes that celebrate the history of Jewish performers, writers and composers in Broadway theater.

The songs of the Broadway musical were created almost exclusively by Jewish Americans over a 50-year period. This documentary explores the role of some of the greatest composers, writers and performers of the Broadway stage, such as Irving Berlin, the Gershwin's, Leonard Bernstein, Rogers and Hammerstein, John Kander, Stephen Sondheim, Mel Brooks, Zero Mostel, Nathan Lane, Idina Menzel, Barbra Streisand and more. There will be a catered dessert reception and complimentary beer and wine. - A Vaad-approved dessert will be made available if reserved by February 3.

Kidon
Sunday, February 8,  2 p.m.
Village 8 Theatres
This comedic spy-thriller begins when Hamas leader Mahmoud al Mabhouh is murdered in his Dubai hotel room in January 2010.  The local police blame the Mossad and release security tapes showing what appear to be Israeli agents carrying out the killing. The shocking story makes international headlines, but no one is more surprised than the Mossad who have never heard of these agents or their mission. An investigation is immediately initiated, and the Mossad soon realizes that it is just one player in a high-stakes con game. Mild adult situations.
French, Hebrew

Ma'ale Films by the Ma'ale School of Television, Film & Arts
Monday, February 9, 7 p.m.
The Temple * Free, followed by a dessert reception.
Two student films from the Ma'ale School of Television, Film and Arts in Jerusalem:  The Strength to Tell about at-risk teens who interview surviving witnesses of the Eichmann trial and Getting Serious, a romantic comedy about a man who pretends to be more religious than he is.-Israel

Dancing Arabs presented by the Eyecare Institute
Saturday, February 14, 7:30 p.m.
Village 8 Theatres
Honor:  chosen to open the Jerusalem Film Festival
Sayed Kashua's film based on his semi-autobiographical novel is a bittersweet coming-of-age story about a young Arab in Israel who struggles to find his place and identity while making necessary compromises. It is based on Kashua's early life, first as a child in the Arab village of Tira and then as a troubled scholarship student. This is considered one of director Eran Riklis' best films, and it was chosen to open the 2014 Jerusalem Film Festival.
Hebrew, Arabic

Run Boy Run
February 15, 11:30 a.m.
Village 8 Theatres
Opening film at Atlanta Jewish Film Festival 
A saga of courage and compassion, this is the miraculous true story of a 9-year-old Polish boy who flees from the Warsaw ghetto in 1942. He survives in the woods, eludes SS patrols, and charms locals into providing shelter, while keeping alive his Jewish faith.
German, Polish, Yiddish, Russian 108 min.

Above and Beyond
Sunday, February 15, 2 p.m.
Adath Jeshurun, Tickets $11.50 in advance, $13 at door
Heritage Award 2014 Jerusalem Film Festival. This gripping documentary produced by Nancy Spielberg and directed by Roberta Grossman, director of Hava Nagila, combines archival footage and interviews to depict the history of the pilots who laid the foundation for the Israeli Air Force in 1948. This ragtag band of brothers not only turned the tide of the Independence war, they also laid the groundwork for the Israeli Air Force.
English

Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
Monday, February 16, 7 p.m.
The Temple
Winner of the Israeli Film Academy's Ophir Award for Best Picture in 2014, one of five nominated foreign films for the Golden Globes award and Israel's nomination for best foreign film for the Academy Awards.

An Israeli woman seeking to finalize a divorce (gett) from her estranged husband finds herself effectively put on trial by her country's religious marriage laws. In Israel, there is neither civil marriage nor civil divorce: both must be conducted by Orthodox rabbis, with the husband's consent. Viviane Amsalem has been applying for a divorce for three years but her religiously devout husband continually refuses her.
French, Hebrew and Arabic

24 Days
Thursday, February 19, 7 p.m.
Village 8 Theaters
Lia award Jerusalem Film Festival - This gripping thriller tells the true story of the kidnapping of Ilan Halimi in a Paris suburb by a gang expecting to collect a huge ransom due to their assumption that all Jews have money. Based on the book by Ilan's mother, the film follows the police as they investigate the crime while clinging to their belief that the victim's religion had nothing to do with his abduction, despite evidence to the contrary. Adult situations.
French

Zero Motivation
Saturday, February 21, 7:30 p.m.
Village 8 Theaters
9 nominations Israel Academy 2014 Ophir Awards, including Best Picture
This zany, cynical comedy is a satirical look at the lives of three young women doing mandatory service in the Israeli Army. A huge hit in Israel, the film revolves around a unit of female Israeli soldiers, bored spending their days in a rural base and disgusted by the chauvinist male officers. Their biggest battles are against their commanders or the men who treat them badly, and the only guns they fire are staple guns. - Contains nudity.
Hebrew

The Jewish Cardinal
Sunday, February 22, 2 p.m.
Village 8 Theaters
A drama based on the true story of Jean-Marie Lustiger, the son of Polish Jewish immigrants, who maintained his cultural identity as a Jew while converting to Catholicism at a young age and later joining the priesthood. Lustiger is appointed Archbishop of Paris by Pope John Paul II and finds a new platform to celebrate his dual identity as a Catholic Jew, earning him both friends and enemies. When Carmelite nuns try to build a convent within Auschwitz, where his mother died, Lustiger finds himself a reluctant mediator. The film swept honors and awards in France last year.
French