Editor

THE WINNERS:

FEATURE FILMS: Best Drama Mountain, Best Film To Life!, Best Documentary Projections of America

SHORT FILMS:  Best Drama The Loss, Best Film The Divorce, Best Documentary Bernice

The 26th Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival, presented by the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center, JACOBS FAMILY CAMPUS, finished its ten days of screenings. The Festival showcased 60 of the best contemporary Jewish themed films from around the world celebrating life, human rights, and freedom of expression.  The mission of the Film Festival is to offer outstanding world cinema that promotes awareness, appreciation and pride in the diversity of the Jewish people to attendees of the community at large.

In addition to the carefully selected short-subject, documentary, and feature length films, the Film Festival featured an international roster of visiting guest artists, included were actors, filmmakers, and scholars, who introduced their work, participated in panel discussions, and met and greeted the festival patrons.

There were two selection juries during the Festival: Feature Films and the Joyce Forums Shorts .The Feature Jury consisted of Hannah Fisher (Film Jury Chair), Larry Zeiger, John Anderson and Tonya Mantooth. The winners of the feature film category were:

Best Drama

MOUNTAIN, directed by Yaelle Kayam, Denmark / Israel

Best Documentary

PROJECTIONS OF AMERICA, directed by Peter Miller, USA.

DEALING WITH THE DEVIL (Runner-Up), directed by Stephane Bentura, France.

JURY SELECTION (Two outstanding films stood out with the jury that did not exactly fit into any of the major categories.  These two films were docu-dramas resulting in a tie.”)

SABENA HIJACKING:  MY VERSION, directed by Rani Saar, Israel. 

(a tie)

A BLIND HERO: THE LOVE OF OTTO WEIDT, directed by Kai Christiansen, Germany

Best Director

THE LAW, directed by Christian Faure, France.

Best Film

TO LIFE!  Directed by Uwe Janson, Germany

On February 8^th, a day was devoted to short films (THE JOYCE FORUM), which was a juried competitive program of short films. Chairperson, Susie Botello, presented this year’s Joyce Forum: A Day of Jewish Shorts awards.  The jury was comprised of Susie Botello, Founder/Director of the San Diego Mobile International Film Festival, Gabriella Bohm, Filmmaker and recipient of one of the Joyce Awards in 2015; Tamara Popvic, graduate student of SDSU’s Television and Film Department and Producer of this year’s short film promotional trailer and Alex Kalognomos, Executive Producer of Arpa International Film Festival, the LA Greek Film Festival and serves on the Oscars and Emmy’s Governors Ball team. Awards were given to the following:

Student Film Critics Award

Blue Like Me: The Art of Siona Benjamin, directed by Hal Rifken, USA, India.

Best Director

Incognito, directed by Jeremiah Quinn, UK

Best Drama 

The Loss, directed by Dekel Nitzan, Israel

Best Documentary

Bernice, directed by Kristina Sorge, USA

Special Jury Award

Ave Maria, directed by Basil Khalil, Palestine

Best Film

The Divorce, directed by Danny Scheinmann and David Scheinmann, UK

Audience Favorite Award

Bernice, directed by Kristina Sorge, USA

In addition to the two juries, ballots were given out to audiences to choose their favorites feature film and documentary. The winners were:

Audience Favorite Award / Drama was REMEMBER , directed by Atom Egoyan, Canada/Germany;

Audience Favorite Award/Documentary was THE PRIME MINISTERS:  SOLDIERS AND PEACEMAKERS, directed by Richard Trank, USA

As the film festival wraps up for this year, Film Festival Director Craig Prater stated “What we accomplished this year with the quality of films from our film selection committee was incredible.  It certainly was the driving force behind our great box office sales this year and congratulations to all the winning filmmakers.  Plans are already in motion for next year’s festival.”