Saved by Deportation: An Unknown Odyssey of Polish Jews

Saturday, July 26th at 1:45 pm
Castro Theatre, San Francisco
Tuesday, August 5th at 2:00 pm
Roda Theatre at the Berkeley Rep
Thursday, August 7th at 2:00 pm
CineArts, Palo Alto

Directed by Slawomir Grunberg, Poland, Russia, United States, 2006, 89 minutes.
Of those Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust, most of them did so because of being deported to Stalin’s gulags and then living out the war in the southern Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. A blessing, if a mixed one, as Saved by Deportation recounts with wit and charm, following two lively eighty-somethings back to the scene where they came of age. Preceded by Max Cohen’s Der Soldat.

Co-presented by Holocaust Center of Northern California and Lehrhaus Judaica.

Box office opens June 24th. For tickets and more information call 925/275-9490 or visit the SFJFF website at www.sfjff.org.

Blessed is the Match: the Life and Death of Hannah Senesh

Sunday, July 27th at 11:30 am
Castro Theatre, San Francisco
Sunday, August 3rd 1:15 p,
Roda Theatre at the Berkeley Rep

Directed by Roberta Grossman, United States, 2008, 85 minutes
Hannah Senesh was a Hungarian Jewish resistance fighter, an optimist in the face of dire circumstances and a poet. Roberta Grossman’s first-rate documentary Blessed Is the Match, narrated by three-time Academy Award nominee Joan Allen, is a paean to Hannah Senesh’s courage and creativity. This inspirational film features gorgeous images of parachutes floating gracefully in the air, like Senesh’s poem “Blessed Is the Match,” written days before her capture by the Nazis.

Sponsored by the Laszlo Tauber Family Foundation. Co-presented by Facing History and Ourselves; Holocaust Center of Northern California; and Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation.

Box office opens June 24th. For tickets and more information call 925/275-9490 or visit the SFJFF website at www.sfjff.org.

Volevo Solo Vivere (I Only Wanted to Live)

Sunday, July 27th at 4:45pm
Castro Theatre, San Francisco
Sunday, August 3rd at 4:15 pm
CineArts, Palo Alto
Monday, August 4th at 4:30 pm
Roda Theatre at the Berkeley Rep
Sunday, August 10th at 12:00pm
Smith Rafael Film Center

Directed by Mimmo Calopresti, Italy, 2006, 75 minutes
Volevo Solo Vivere offers a unique window into the Italian Jewish Holocaust experience. This outstanding documentary follows nine Italian citizens who endured the Italian racial laws and survived deportation and internment at Auschwitz. Masterfully directed by Mimmo Calopresti and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, it features searing testimonies; most compelling is the story of Liliana Segre of Milan, whose dignity and articulation of her experience are quite remarkable.

The screening of Volevo Solo Vivere at the Castro Theatre on July 27 will be followed by an onstage interview with Liliana Segre.

Co-presented by the Italian Cultural Institute, San Francisco. Co-sponsored by Deborah Blank; presented in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute, San Francisco. Co-presented by Holocaust Center of Northern California and Jewish Family and Children's Services of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties, and Museo ItaloAmericano.

Box office opens June 24th. For tickets and more information call 925/275-9490 or visit the SFJFF website at www.sfjff.org.

Perlasca, an Italian Hero

Thursday, Jul 31st at 12:30 pm
Castro Theatre, San Francisco
Wednesday, August 6th at 6:15 pm
Roda Theatre at the Berkeley Rep

Directed by Alberto Negrin, Hungary, Italy, 2001, 126 minutes
What makes a man risk his life for people he doesn’t know? Perlasca, an Italian Hero is a taut drama about one man’s remarkable courage in saving 5,200 Hungarian Jews from deportation to Auschwitz. This account of an Italian’s resistance to fascism is based on the true story of Giorgio Perlasca (dynamically played by Luca Zingaretti), a businessman who masqueraded as a Spanish diplomat in Budapest at the end of World War II.

Sponsored by Ray Lifchez; presented in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute, San Francisco. Co-presented by Holocaust Center of Northern California, Jewish Family and Children's Services of the East Bay and Museo ItaloAmericano.

Box office opens June 24th. For tickets and more information call 925/275-9490 or visit the SFJFF website at www.sfjff.org.

We Were Exodus

Monday, August 4th at 1:00pm
CineArts, Palo Alto

Directed by Jean-Michel Vecchiet France, 2007, 80 minutes
The journey of the Exodus was the boldest clandestine immigration event following World War II: in July 1947, 4,551 Holocaust survivors boarded the ship in Sète, France, and left secretly for Palestine. The men who volunteered to crew the Exodus were a ragtag team of Jewish World War II veterans and mariners with a conscience from all over the world. Their recollections form the structure of this impeccably researched documentary about the Exodus ’47.

Co-presented by Holocaust Center of Northern California.

Box office opens June 24th. For tickets and more information call 925/275-9490 or visit the SFJFF website at www.sfjff.org.