The Sephardic Jewish Film Festival also known as the Sephardic Film Festival, is an annual New York City Film festival sponsored by the American Sephardi Federation.
The festival showcases films about Jewish communities of the Mediterranean and Asia, including Morocco, Yemen, Ethiopia, Kurdistan, Iran/Persia and India, as well as the Sephardi descendants of the Jews expelled from Spain.
The films are part of a movement towards low-budget productions and first-person documentaries taking advantage of the freedom given by improvements in video cameras and associated digital hardware to pursue a more personal on-screen vision of what it means to be Jewish.
Famous quotes containing the words jewish, film and/or festival:
“A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy till they die.”
—Philip Roth (20th century)
“The obvious parallels between Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz have frequently been noted: in both there is the orphan hero who is raised on a farm by an aunt and uncle and yearns to escape to adventure. Obi-wan Kenobi resembles the Wizard; the loyal, plucky little robot R2D2 is Toto; C3PO is the Tin Man; and Chewbacca is the Cowardly Lion. Darth Vader replaces the Wicked Witch: this is a patriarchy rather than a matriarchy.”
—Andrew Gordon, U.S. educator, critic. “The Inescapable Family in American Science Fiction and Fantasy Films,” Journal of Popular Film and Television (Summer 1992)
“Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose: at the festival of unleavened bread, at the festival of weeks, and at the festival of booths. They shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed; all shall give as they are able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God that he has given you.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 16:16,17.