Jewish Film Festival 2026 Celebrates Resilience, History, And Personal Storytelling

The Jacob Burns Film Center announces the 24th annual Jewish Film Festival, running March 24–31 and April 3-6, 2026. Featuring 20 programs—including narrative features, documentaries, restored classics, special presentations, encore screenings, and filmmaker Q&As—this year’s lineup highlights the intimate human experiences behind defining historical moments. Spanning continents and generations, audiences can expect a diverse collection of films that reflect the richness and complexity of Jewish life both past and present. Festival goers can also enjoy a classic New York–style Egg Cream during the Jewish Film Festival, available for purchase at Take 3 Wine Bar & Café (Thursday–Sunday). The Festival will take a break on April 1 & 2 for Passover, resuming with screenings on April 3.

JBFC members receive early access to tickets during the festival pre-sale. Member pre-sale opens Tuesday, February 17 at noon and tickets go on sale to the public on Friday, February 20 at noon.

“By its nature, a Jewish film festival is a celebration of resilience, tradition, community, and family bonds, and also an exploration of a long history marked by conflict and trauma,” said David Schwartz, Festival Curator. “The films in this year’s program capture defining moments in history through deeply personal perspectives. Whether epic in scope or intimate in scale, each reminds us that history is ultimately made up of individual stories.”

Opening Night on March 24 at 7:00 features documentary My Underground Mother, followed by a filmmaker Q&A and reception. Filmmaker Marisa Fox uncovers a long-hidden family secret about her mother’s survival during the Holocaust, revealing a powerful and deeply personal story connected to Nazi-run forced labor camps for women. An additional screening will take place on April 4 at 7:00.

Additional programs—many introduced by Festival Curator David Schwartz and several accompanied by filmmaker Q&As—include:

Frontier
March 25 at 4:15, tells the gripping true-inspired story of Spanish villagers who risk their lives to help Jewish refugees escape Nazi-occupied France during WWII. 2025. 101 min. Spanish with English subtitles.

Fantasy Life
March 25 at 7:00 (Q&A with filmmaker Matthew Shear) and April 3 at 7:00, stars Amanda Peet in a sharply observed New York comedy about an actress confronting career stagnation and an unexpected friendship. 2025. 91 min.

Sapiro vs. Ford: The Jew Who Sued Henry Ford
March 26 at 4:00 (Q&A with director Gaylen Ross and producer Carol King) and April 3 at 2:30, recounts the landmark 1927 defamation lawsuit brought by Jewish lawyer Aaron Sapiro against Henry Ford in what became one of the nation’s first hate speech trials. 2025. 69 min.

A Letter to David
March 26 at 7:00 and March 31 at 4:30, interweaves past and present to tell the story of David Cunio, abducted on October 7, 2023, and the eerie connection to a film he made a decade earlier about an abduction. 2025. 74 min. Hebrew with English subtitles.

Full Support + Ilana Goor: Woman Against the Wind
March 27 at 1:00, Full Support and Ilana Goor: Woman Against the Wind offer portraits of Israeli women—from a trailblazing 88-year-old sculptor to candid conversations inside a Jaffa bra shop. 2024/2025. 123 mins total. Hebrew with English subtitles.

Neshoma
March 27 at 4:00 and April 6 at 7:00, a visually rich portrait of Amsterdam’s Jewish community between the wars, weaving archival footage with fictional letters that capture a vibrant world on the brink of destruction. 2024. 88 min. Dutch with English subtitles.

Once Upon My Mother
March 27 at 7:00, a moving and often joyful adaptation of Roland Perez’s memoir, celebrating a fiercely devoted mother determined to give her disabled son an extraordinary life. 2025. 102 min. French with English subtitles.

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz + The Street
March 28 at 11:00, Richard Dreyfuss shines in this rarely screened adaptation of Mordecai Richler’s classic novel, following an ambitious young hustler coming of age in Montreal. Paired with Caroline Leaf’s animated short film The Street. 1974. 130 min total.

Our Children (on 35mm)
March 28 at 1:55, a landmark Yiddish film in which Holocaust survivors confront sentimentality through performance, revealing how storytelling can offer catharsis and truth. 1948. 68 min. Yiddish with English subtitles.

Death & Taxes
March 28 at 4:00 (Q&A with film subject Joy Schein), an engrossing family documentary that uses an estate tax obsession to explore generational conflict, ambition, and the promises and limits of the American dream. 2024. 85 min.

The Last Spy
March 28 at 7:00 (Q&A with director Katharina Otto-Bernstein) and April 4 at 4:15, The Last Spy chronicles the extraordinary life of German Jewish refugee Peter Sichel, who became an American master spy. 2025. 106 min. English and German with English subtitles.

The Fleischer Brothers’ Betty Boop Cartoons
March 29 at 11:00, a family-friendly selection of restored animated shorts from the Fleischer Brothers, celebrating the jazz-infused energy of early Manhattan animation; tickets are $5. 1924–1934. 70 min (approx).

A Three Course Meal: Three Food Films
March 29 at 1:00 (with introductions by the film teams and a gathering afterwards for egg creams), a deliciously varied trio of films celebrating food, memory, and community, from a beloved Tel Aviv restaurant to Jewish Christmas traditions and the iconic egg cream. Also screening April 4 at 11:00. 2020–2025. 85 min total. English and Hebrew with English subtitles.

His Wife’s Lover (on 35mm) + Orchard Street
March 29 at 4:00 pm (Q&A with film critic J. Hoberman), the 1931 Yiddish musical comedy His Wife’s Lover is paired with Ken Jacobs’ experimental short Orchard Street. 1931/1955. 107 min total. Yiddish with English subtitles; silent short.

When Caesar Was King: How Sid Caesar Invented Comedy
Clip Show, Book Talk, and Signing
March 29 at 7:00, biographer David Margolick leads a lively illustrated talk celebrating Sid Caesar’s revolutionary impact on American comedy, including clips of Sid Caesar’s funniest skits.

Real Estate
March 30 at 4:15 pm and April 4 at 1:30 pm, a raw, intimate Israeli drama following a young couple forced from their home, as a housing crisis exposes the fault lines of love, adulthood, and compromise. 2024. 99 min. Hebrew with English subtitles.

All I Had Was Nothingness + Night and Fog
March 30 at 7:00 (Q&A with JBFC director of film curation and programming Eric Hynes) and April 6 at 4:00, a powerful behind-the-scenes companion to Shoah, paired with Alain Resnais’ landmark short, tracing cinema’s earliest confrontations with the Holocaust. 2025/1956. 127 min total. French with English subtitles.

Mazel Tov
March 31 at 7:00 and April 3 at 4:15, A sharply observed Argentine family comedy in which a wedding, a funeral, and unresolved resentments collide with warmth, humor, and heart. 2025. 97 min. Spanish with English subtitles.

Shoah
April 5 at 11:00, a rare theatrical screening of Claude Lanzmann’s nine-and-a-half-hour masterpiece, brings together survivor, witness, and perpetrator testimony. 1985. 666 min. French with English subtitles.

Tickets are $13 (members), $18 (nonmembers) for regular screenings. Special event prices vary.

Tickets and full details are available on the series page; additional filmmaker Q&As and special guests may be announced, so please check the website for updates.