San Francisco Chronicle

Jewish Film Festival back live, online

- By Mick LaSalle

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is returning this summer in a hybrid version combining both live and virtual events, with a roster of more than 50 films from 20 countries.

Those who feel more comfortabl­e watching from home can experience the films and the events virtually July 22 through Aug. 1, while those who want to mingle with others in person can attend a slate of live screenings at the Castro Theatre scheduled for July 2425.

All but two of the films slated for the festival, the world’s first and largest event of its kind, will

be available for virtual viewing.

One of the liveonly films is “Persian Lessons,” the opening night movie that screens at 8:15 p.m. July 24. The festival’s screening will mark the film’s U.S. premiere.

The war drama has an arresting premise: During World War II, a Jewish man is sent to a concentrat­ion camp, where he avoids getting killed by convincing the guards that he’s Persian. So it’s a narrow escape — until one of the Nazi officers asks the man to teach him Persian, a language the prisoner doesn’t know at all. He’s forced to invent an entirely new language.

“Persian Lessons” is directed by Vadim Perelman, a major filmmaker whose “The Life Before Her Eyes” was one of the best (and least appreciate­d) films of 2007. Jewish Film Festival Artistic Director Jay Rosenblatt calls it “a film of epic proportion­s, with one of the most satisfying ending reveals in recent memory.”

To conclude the festival is a virtual screening of “Plan A,” the factbased story of a plot by Jewish Holocaust survivors, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, to kill millions of Germans by poisoning the water supply. It stars August Diehl, an actor you might remember as the German officer in that tense bar scene from “Inglouriou­s Basterds.”

This year, the festival’s annual Freedom of Expression Award is going to the great Polish director Agnieszka Holland, best known in the U.S. for two masterpiec­es: “Europa Europa” (1990) and “In Darkness.” Her latest film, “Charlatan,” a biopic of the Czech healer Jan Mikolasek, will have its West Coast premiere virtually at the festival.

Laura Thielen, former artistic director of the Aspen Film Festival, is scheduled to conduct a virtual Q&A with Holland.

The size and scale of this year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is a marked contrast from 2020, which was a much smaller event that took place at driveins and online over the course of four days. The 2021 edition is one of many indication­s of a Bay Area arts scene slowly but steadily coming back to life.

“There is nothing like a community experienci­ng a film premiere together in the dark,” said Jewish Film Institute Executive Director Lexi Leban in a statement. “We cannot wait to see everyone!”

 ?? Jewish Film Festival ?? Agnieszka Holland’s “Charlatan” will be screened virtually.
Jewish Film Festival Agnieszka Holland’s “Charlatan” will be screened virtually.
 ?? Jewish Film Festival ?? In “Persian Lessons,” a prisoner of the Nazis makes a desperate bid to survive.
Jewish Film Festival In “Persian Lessons,” a prisoner of the Nazis makes a desperate bid to survive.

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