Hartford Jewish Film Festival

About the Event

Join us to celebrate the diversity and richness of Jewish culture and history through the medium of film.

The Phyllis Hoffman Hartford Jewish Film Festival is back for its 29th year this winter, ready to captivate audiences with a diverse array of films, speakers, and special events. The Film Festival Committee carefully selects films that showcase the breadth and depth of Jewish cultural, religious, historical, and social conditions of the modern era. These films offer audiences the opportunity to experience powerful stories and moving images that challenge and inspire.

Schedule of Events

1:00pm - Wanted: Roni Kalderon at Mandell JCC

The boy for whom soccer was in his soul, Roni Kalderon, grew up in Tel Aviv in the late 1960s, without his parents who left for the United States. At 17, Kalderon became the star of Hapoel Tel Aviv, and was regarded as the great promise of Israeli football. Then, he was invited to go to the Netherlands and play for the coveted Ajax football club. This was only the opening whistle for the real game of his life: he would soon find himself deep in international drug trafficking, constantly escaping from the law, until he disappeared off the face of the earth. The fantastic narratives woven around his enigmatic persona, and the mystery surrounding his disappearance, lead the viewer between reality and the myth around the promising footballer who became a drug lord.

3:00pm - Monkey House at Mandell JCC

Monkey House is the latest film by revered Israeli filmmaker Avi Nesher. Amir Haddad, a very ambitious young filmmaker, stumbles upon a complex scam, concocted by Amitai Kariv – an Israeli left-wing novelist, and Margo Mai – a young woman who's writing Kariv's biography. Haddad considers this encounter fodder for a docu-thriller, one that features much passion and deceit. Kariv, not a nemesis to be taken lightly, takes exception to Haddad's investigation. Margo Mai seems to be playing both sides. Hostilities ensue. When narratives collide, truth is an immediate victim.

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