Click to view or download our 2021 film schedule
IMPORTANT: Our 2021 festival will be hybrid. This means we will offer both in-person (live) screenings and virtual screenings.
Please note: In-person screenings will not be offered virtually and virtual screenings will not be offered in-person.
COVID POLICY (for in-person screenings): In accordance with CDC guidelines, masks are recommended for everyone regardless of vaccination status.
A Crime on the Bayou (virtual)
Documentary - 91 minutes | VIRTUAL
Directed by Nancy Buirski
Description: A Black teenager bravely challenges the most powerful white supremacist in 1960s Louisiana with the help of a young Jewish attorney. Systemic racism meets its match in decisive courtroom battles, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and a lifelong friendship is born.
Sponsored by Bergen County (NJ) Chapter of The Links, Inc.; Martin Luther King Birthday Committee; The Jewish Community Council of Greater Teaneck
Talkback with Nancy Buirski
Ailey (in-person)
Documentary - 82 minutes | IN-PERSON
Directed by Jamila Wignot
Description: Alvin Ailey was a trailblazing pioneer who found salvation through dance. Ailey traces the full contours of this brilliant and enigmatic man whose search for the truth in movement resulted in enduring choreography that centers on the Black American experience with grace, strength, and unparalleled beauty.
Sponsored by National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc., Bergen / Passaic Chapter
Talkback with Jamila Wignot; Sylvia Waters, former Ailey principal dancer; Constance Stamatiou, current Ailey dancer
COVID POLICY (for in-person screenings): In accordance with CDC guidelines, masks are recommended for everyone regardless of vaccination status.
American River (in-person)
Documentary - 86 minutes | IN-PERSON
Directed by Scott Morris
Description: Mary Bruno spent her childhood fearing the polluted stretch of the Passaic River near her home. Decades later, she returns to rediscover the river of her youth. American River is a cinematic adventure that follows Ms. Bruno and river guide Carl Alderson on a 4-day, 80-mile kayak journey from the Passaic’s pristine headwaters to its toxic mouth in Newark Bay. Along the way, the filmmaker engages residents, experts and advocates in candid conversations that reveal the Passaic's history, geology, and ecology: How did this powerful and once-celebrated river become one of the most contaminated in America? Can it be saved?
Sponsored by the Eco-Art Committee of the Teaneck Creek Conservancy; League of Women Voters of Teaneck; Rotary Club of Teaneck; Wise Older Women (Presentation of WOW Woman of the Year to Paula Rogovin, Jackie Kates, and Addie Wijnen)
Talkback with Scott Morris, Kelly Sheehan, and Hackensack Riverkeeper Captain Bill Sheehan
COVID POLICY (for in-person screenings): In accordance with CDC guidelines, masks are recommended for everyone regardless of vaccination status.
Coded (virtual)
Documentary short - 28 minutes | VIRTUAL
Directed by Ryan White
Description: Coded tells the nearly forgotten story of Saturday Evening Post illustrator J. C. Leyendecker, his impact on advertising history, and his experience as a closeted gay man in the early 1900s. His coded imagery spoke directly to the gay community and laid the foundation for LGBTQ representation in advertising today.
Sponsored by Anthony Paradiso, AllThingzAP; National Council of Jewish Women Bergen County Section
Harry Chapin: When in Doubt, Do Something (virtual)
Documentary - 93 minutes | VIRTUAL
Directed by Rick Korn
Description: A documentary that tells the story of singer/songwriter/activist Harry Chapin's dedication to try to end world hunger before his tragic passing. The film covers Chapin's life, career, and political activism. It is told through interviews, archival footage, and photos. The film features Chapin's family, band members, and peers that include Billy Joel, Pat Benatar, Kenny Rogers, Bruce Springsteen, and more. The director paints a compelling portrait of an artist and family man who sometimes stretched himself thin when people asked for help with their causes.
Sponsored by Teaneck Community Chorus; Barbara Ostroth, Coldwell Banker
Talkback with Tom Chapin, Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, & activist; Carlos Rodriguez, CEO of the Community Food Bank of NJ
In A Different Key (in-person)
Documentary - 102 minutes | IN-PERSON
Directed by Caren Zucker & John Donvan
Description: A mother tracks down the first person ever diagnosed with autism to a rural Mississippi town to learn whether his life story holds promise for her own autistic son. Her journey exposes a startling record of cruelty and kindness alike, framed by forces like race, money, and privilege. She ultimately finds hope for a future with greater acceptance for those who are considered different.
Sponsored by Fairleigh Dickinson University; Township of Teaneck: Stigma Free Advisory Board
Talkback with Caren Zucker & John Donvan; Amy Gravino (in the film)
COVID POLICY (for in-person screenings): In accordance with CDC guidelines, masks are recommended for everyone regardless of vaccination status.
The Light Ahead (in-person)
DRAMA - 94 minutes | IN-PERSON
Directed by Henry Felt & Edgar G. Ulmer (Restored 1939 film) | Film restoration by The National Center for Jewish Film | Yiddish, English subtitles
Description: Made on the eve of WWII, the film is at once romantic, expressionist, and painfully conscious of the danger about to engulf European Jews. Impoverished and disabled lovers, Fishke and Hodel dream of life in the big city of Odessa, free from the poverty and stifling old-world prejudices of the shtetl. The shtetl denizens’ embrace of superstition over science and modernity amidst a cholera outbreak makes the film especially poignant.
Sponsored by Karen & Phil Yucht and Addie Wijnen
Talkback with Eric Goldman, Adjunct Professor of Cinema, Yeshiva University
COVID POLICY (for in-person screenings): In accordance with CDC guidelines, masks are recommended for everyone regardless of vaccination status.
Little Girl (virtual)
Documentary - 90 minutes | VIRTUAL
Directed by Sébastien Lifshitz | French, English subtitles
Description: Little Girl is the moving portrait of 8-year-old Sasha, who has always known that she is a girl. Sasha's family has recently accepted her gender identity, embracing their daughter for who she truly is while working to confront outdated norms and find affirmation in a small community of rural France. Realized with delicacy and intimacy, the film poetically explores the emotional challenges, everyday feats, and small moments in Sasha's life.
Sponsored by Larry Bauer; YWCA Northern New Jersey
Talkback with Molly Mitchell, mother of a transgender 13-year-old girl; Tisha Leonardo-Santiago, Community Relations Specialist, NJ Division on Civil Rights
To learn more about any upcoming events at the NJ Division of Civil Rights visit their website at, https://www.njoag.gov/
If you want to connect with Molly please reach out to her by email at molly@safetosaytogether.com
YWCA website: www.ywcannj.org or follow us on social media @ywcannj.
My Name is Sara (virtual)
Biography - 111 minutes | VIRTUAL
Directed by Steven Oritt
Description: The true story of Sara Guralnick, a 13-year-old Polish Jew whose entire family was killed by Nazis in September of 1942. After a grueling escape to the Ukrainian countryside, Sara steals her Christian best friend's identity and finds refuge in a small village where she is taken in by a farmer and his young wife. She soon discovers the dark secrets of her employer’s marriage, compounding the greatest secret she must strive to protect, her true identity.
Sponsored by the Jewish Link of New Jersey
Talkback with Steven Oritt; Andy Intrater, Executive Producer; Fanny Wedro, 94-year-old survivor who knew Sara; Dr. Dennis B. Klein, Kean University Professor of History, Dir. Jewish Studies program, MA program in Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Hidden Child Fdn, Teaneck Bd of Ed
Storm Lake (virtual)
Documentary - 86 minutes | VIRTUAL
Directed by Beth Levison & Jerry Risius
Description: Art Cullen and his family and colleagues at Iowa's Storm Lake Times fight for the survival of their biweekly small-town newspaper as forces threaten to overwhelm their precarious existence. Storm Lake paints a picture of an agricultural community threatened with change—from corporate, political and environmental forces, all while facing a pandemic.
Sponsored by NJ PBS; Wendy Wineburgh Dessanti, Weichert Realtors; Teaneck Tomorrow
Talkback with Beth Levison & Jerry Risius
Tango Shalom (in-person)
Comedy - 115 minutes | IN-PERSON
Directed by Gabriel Bologna
Description: When a female Tango dancer asks a Jewish Rabbi to enter a televised dance competition with her, there’s one big problem – due to his orthodox beliefs, he is not allowed to touch her! As he develops a plan to enter the competition without sacrificing his faith, the bonds of family, tolerance, and community are tested. Award-winners Lainie Kazan and Renee Taylor are featured.
Sponsored by the Jewish Standard
Talkback with actors, producers, writers: Jos Laniado, Claudio Laniado, actress Marci Fine, and virtually with Renee Taylor
COVID POLICY (for in-person screenings): In accordance with CDC guidelines, masks are recommended for everyone regardless of vaccination status.
Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation (virtual)
Documentary - 86 minutes | VIRTUAL
Directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Description: This is the story of two of the greatest writers of the past century examined in a dialogue that stretches from their early days of friendship to their final, unsparing critiques of each other. They lived parallel lives and struggled with a lifelong pursuit of creativity, self-doubt, addiction, and success. The filmmaker immerses the viewer in the words of Capote and Williams (voiced by Jim Parsons and Zachary Quinto respectively.)
Sponsored by Anthony Paradiso, AllThingzAP; National Council of Jewish Women Bergen County Section
Talkback with Lisa Immordino Vreeland and Thomas Keith, editor of Tennessee Williams' collections
Twenty Pearls: The Story of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority (virtual)
Documentary - 91 minutes | VIRTUAL
Directed by Deborah Riley Draper
Description: Twenty Pearls examines AKA Sorority’s history beginning with its founding by nine Black women enrolled at Howard University in 1908. It traces the sorority’s direct influence and involvement in watershed moments throughout history including World War II, NASA, Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), culminating in the historic election of Kamala Harris as America’s first Black and South Asian woman vice president.
Sponsored by Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., Iota Epsilon Omega Chapter of Bergen County; Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., Nu Kappa Chapter of Fairleigh Dickinson University, Metro Campus; Bergen County (NJ) Chapter of The Links, Inc.
Talkback with Deborah Riley Draper; Mary Bentley LaMar, North Atlantic Regional Director, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Inc.;
Shuana Tucker-Sims, Eastern Area Director, The Links, Inc.
