(Cinema) – Coming up very soon, the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival will be showcasing a wide variety of films, panel discussions, special guests, and other events centered in the Jewish culture in the United States and around the world.
It is a great opportunity to watch cinema that matters, and where cultural aspects of life are brought to light from the perspectives of thoughtful and innovative filmmakers. Get ready for great storytelling, July 21 to August 7, 2016 in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and San Rafael.
Of the 50+ films to be shown during the festival (SFJFF), the following films are part of the Take Action program, making an emphasis on social justice and following the Jewish value of Tikkum Olam.
These three films provide a new look on old issues of inequality and prejudice, presenting abortion, gentrifrication, and sexual violence in a world that moves at the speed of the internet but in which not everybody gets the opportunities and rights inherent to all human beings.
1. Abortion: Stories Women Tell
Friday, July 29 – Castro Theater – 1:25 pm
In 2016, abortion remains one of the most divisive issues in America, especially in Missouri, where only one abortion clinic remains open, patients and their doctors must navigate a 72-hour waiting period, and each year sees more restrictions.
Award-winning director and Missouri native Tracy Droz Tragos sheds new light on the contentious issue, with a focus not on the debate, but rather on the women themselves: those struggling with unplanned pregnancies, and the providers who show up at clinics to give medical care, as well as the activists on both sides of the issue, hoping to sway decisions and lives.
2. Class Divide
Friday, July 29 – Castro Theater – 6:40 pm
The effects of hyper–gentrification in New York City’s West Chelsea neighborhood. On one side of the intersection of 10th Ave. and 26th St. sits Avenues: The World School, an elite pre-K through 12th grade private school with a $40,000-$50,000 per year price tag.
On the other side sits the Elliott-Chelsea public housing projects, home to thousands of under–employed and under–served residents, where an average family of four’s yearly income is roughly $21,000 – below the poverty level.
In the middle, a park, in which young people in the same neighborhood from very different backgrounds, trying to make sense of where they fit.
3. Audrey and Daisy
Friday, July 29 – Castro Theater – 8:50 pm
Friday, August 5 – Piedmont Theater – 4:10 pm
One of the young women lives in Saratoga, California., the other one in Maryville, Missouri. Both were seriously affected by sexual violence not only because, in unrelated incidents, a group of boys got them drunk and sexuality assaulted them, but also because they posted their actions in the internet. What has happened since makes people wonder why our societies sometimes condone sexual violence. The film provides interesting insight from key players, and tells what these young women are doing to survive and move on from the humiliation and other consequences these acts brought to their lives.
For more information and tickets, please visit the SFJFF website at www.sfjff.org
Content curated by Lupita Peimbert, with notes from the films’ producers.
Lupitanews.com 