You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” THE JAZZ SINGER (1927), the first “talkie”, follows the son of a devout hazzan who dreams of becoming an entertainer. Courtesy of My Jewish Learning.It’s a question we get asked all the time. It’s also a question we must ask ourselves when considering films for our annual programming. What does make a movie “Jewish enough” for a Jewish film festival? Does the film have Jewish characters? Does it need to be set during the Holocaust? Is it set in Israel? Is it set in a shul or Jewish summer camp? Is it a true story about a famous person who was Jewish? But what if this famous person was a secular Jew and never practiced the religion? Does that still make the movie a qualified candidate?
We can give ourselves a headache overthinking these criteria when all we need to understand is simple: a Jewish movie just needs to have a Jewish angle. An “angle” doesn’t necessarily mean Jewish content (i.e. a scene with a Jewish wedding). We have screened many films in the past that have no Jewish content, per se, but the religion and its teachings are right there, hidden behind the frame. Take, for example, Harmonia (2016), an Israeli musical drama that we closed our festival with in 2017. We follow the turbulent marriage of an infertile harpist of the Jerusalem Philharmonic and her conductor husband. Together, they meet a mysterious young woman who agrees to have a child for them. Cut to 12 years later and their son, named Ben, is a talented but extremely volatile pianist.
When you watch the movie or even read its synopsis, you might ask yourself: is this a Jewish movie? It’s set in Israel, but not everyone in Israel is Jewish. You might see a mezuzah in one shot of the movie, but is this truly a “Jewish” film? In fact, it completely is. Little does the audience know that Harmonia is actually a modern-day retelling of one story from the Book of Genesis, that of Sarah, Hagar, and Abraham. Who knew?! The ingenuity is in the storytelling. This whole time, we are watching both a powerful family drama and a classic story from the Hebrew Bible.
We can go even further with a film like Little Stones (2017), also shown at the 2017 Jewish Film Festival. This remarkable film – winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary that same year – follows four women from around the world who empower women and girls through their art. None of the subjects in the film are Jewish. Judaism isn’t even mentioned or hinted at. So why did we show it? Even we were admittedly surprised months before the festival when we saw that the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival – the oldest one in the country – was debuting this film. We watched the film, did a little research, and then a lightbulb went on above our brains. Director Sophia Kruz, a Jewish woman herself, crafted a film that stresses the importance of tikkun olam, “repairing the world.” The subjects of the film may not be Jewish, but their actions and goals are parallel with Judaism’s teachings of giving back and making a difference in this world.
The biggest misconception about Jewish film festivals, without a doubt, is that they only focus on Holocaust and Israeli cinema. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Jewish movies have literally been around since the creation of international cinema. We are all familiar with Hollywood classics like Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Schindler’s List (1993), and practically any movie that Barbra Streisand is in, but the list goes on. For years and years – as far back as pre-WWII Yiddish cinema – filmmakers from across the globe have been making movies with a Jewish angle. There are stories upon stories upon stories that continue to be told. Unfortunately, little do know about the growing significance of Jewish film festivals.
“There is this pluralism of Jewish storytelling,” says Shawn Snyder, director of To Dust (2018), a PJFM alumnus film. “There’s this stereotyped idea of what a Jewish film festival might be and what films might be offered. There’s this multitude of stories in the context of Judaism.”
There is pluralism in Jewish storytelling, indeed, but what if the Jewish “angle” of a certain film isn’t necessarily crucial? Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022), writer/director/star Cooper Raiff’s critically acclaimed comedy/drama – coming to Apple TV+ June 17 – is a solid example. This story follows a non-Jewish 23-year-old college graduate who gets a job as a “party starter” for Bar Mitzvahs. The Jewish “content” is obviously in the Bar Mitzvah sequences, but do these settings match the criteria enough for it to be a Jewish movie? Raiff’s character meets a young mother of a teenage girl on the autism spectrum and the three of them form a tight bond. However, they’re not Jewish either. His character has a few short, non-religious conversations with party guests, but are we to presume that they’re Jewish? After all, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs aren’t just for Jews. (If you grew up non-Jewish, you probably went to at least one Jewish friend’s Bar Mitzvah). Even Raiff, the director himself, isn’t Jewish offscreen.
Therefore, does Cha Cha Real Smooth fit in the category of Jewish cinema?
“We do see candle lighting and Hamotzi and Kiddush blessings, although the music tends less toward ‘Hava Nagila’ and more toward pop,” says local film critic Stephen Silver. “Whether all this represents a heartwarming example of interfaith harmony, or a shameful watering down of the sacred coming-of-age ritual — with the non-Jewish protagonist profiting from his cultural appropriation — may very well emerge as a contentious debate once people start seeing the movie.”
Is this just a lovely little indie that is maybe more suitable for film festivals as opposed to Jewish ones? Or are we overthinking all of this and Cha Cha Real Smooth is very visibly a Jewish movie because the Bar Mitzvah setting is so prevalent? These are the types of questions we take into consideration when previewing the latest films. Even if there are exceptions, even if one Jewish film in a lineup may be “more Jewish” than another, the Jewishness is always there.