Boca International Jewish Film Festival spreads cinema-love in SoFlo

The third annual Boca International Jewish Film Festival (BIJFF) will be extending its cinematic reach, according to organizers.

The slate of movies, red carpets, receptions, talks and meet-and-greets will continue to be staged mostly in Boca Raton and Delray Beach but there will also be a showing in Lake Worth Beach and a series of screenings in Deerfield Beach.

Les Rich — who co-founded the festival along with Wendy Honig and Arleen Roberts — says, “This year we’re going to expand to Deerfield. It’s kind of an experiment, but we’re going on five days in Deerfield at the Paragon Theater. They renovated the theater and it’s really good and I think we’ll do very well there. And maybe we’ll expand beyond that. I mean someday maybe we will change the name to the Florida International Jewish Film Festival.”

The schedule and ticket prices are available at JFilmBoca.org.

Screenings will take place:

• Feb. 21-28 at Cinemark Bistro Boca Raton and XD
• March 1-15 at Movies of Delray
• March 18-22 at Paragon Theater Deerfield

PROLOGUE

That’s not all that is happening. Even though the festival runs Feb. 21-March 22, there are some big events jumping off in January, including a sneak peek Big Reveal on Jan. 14 at the Movies at Delray.

“We do this every year … for free, we have the Big Reveal,” Rich explains. “People come, they can see trailers of all the different films that we’re going to show in the festival. And our patrons go and they choose which film they want to sponsor and we give the patrons first dibs on what films they want to go to. And then thereafter, like a week or two later, we’ll open for ticket sales to the general public.”

There will also be a Cinebash Opening Celebration on Jan. 26 at The Wick Theatre & Museum Club in Boca Raton.

“We’re going to have a dinner and we’re going to show the world premiere of a film called ‘Tova’ about Tovah Feldshuh,” Rich says. “And at this event Tova Feldshuh will be coming and we’re going to give her a Lifetime Achievement Award. It’s going to be a really big event at the Wick Theatre. They’re intending to make a big national event out of it. It’s a really, really good documentary by a filmmaker named David Serero. So David Serero is also a famous opera singer. And I will try to get between David and Tova to do a little singing together. That’s my goal.”

CLOSE-UP ON THE FEELINGS

Along those lines, nurturing the community is the main goal of the motion picture celebration, explains Honig.

“One of the things that we do with the festival is we entertain, we educate, we inspire,” she says “Okay, that’s all good. So do most film festivals. The one thing that we do that sets us apart from other festivals is that we embrace community. We know that there’s a need for events, parties, get-togethers, eating together, being together, and it’s really terrific when that happens because we’re building community and relationships.

It’s one thing when you just show a movie. I can show a movie and you go to the movie quietly with your popcorn and then you leave. We’re not like that. It’s a very different feeling. They get to meet and greet with movie stars, with different speakers.”

Another thing they are bringing back is the Movie Shorts Program, which will be on Feb. 1 at Movies of Delray

“We have a short film competition and people vote for which short film they like the best,” Rich explains. “And this year it’s a really good selection of short films that we have.”

Honig adds, “During COVID Les created the largest program of Jewish short films to keep people entertained. And I think to this very day, it probably is the largest of all online Jewish short films programs.”

OPENING CREDITS

Rich remembers that the trio has been involved in producing film festivals here in South Florida for decades.

“Wendy actually started many, many years ago,” he recalls. “Probably almost for 20 years now. She started up in Palm Beach. She worked at the Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival. Then Wendy and I worked at the Palm Beach International Film Festival many years ago.”

• Honig and Rich ran a Jewish sidebar showcase at the Palm Beach International Film Festival, which shut down in 2017.
• Then from 2017-2023 they ran the Boca Raton Jewish Film Festival at the Adolph & Rose Levis Jewish Community Center. That festival has been rebranded and is run by the JCC.
• Honig also ran two screening committees of the Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival, one in Boynton Beach and one in Palm Beach Gardens.
• Arleen Roberts was on the Screening Committee at Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival, Palm Beach International Film Festival and all the versions of the Boca Raton Jewish Film Festival. When the Boca International Jewish Film Festival started in 2024, she became a director.

“There’s a tremendous amount of people moving into the South Florida area,” Honig adds. “They’re moving into Boca, they’re moving in all over the place. If you go to downtown Boca, you realize how many people are moving in. There is such a great need for them to have a festival like this. You know, not everyone plays golf, not everyone plays pickleball. There are people that really love this and love coming together and meeting people and making friends and having parties and doing events together.

I think it’s a very important thing. So for the very nominal fee of a ticket, they get to come in and they get to see these speakers and the movie stars and make friends. It’s just such a wonderful time.”

HOT FLICKS PICKS

Here are, in no particular order, just a few of Honig and Rich’s BIJFF highlights.

“ADA: MY MOTHER THE ARCHITECT”

Honig — “We are 501c3 and we give money to Jewish and Israeli charities. And one of the charities that has partnered with us is The Technion, which is the technical university in (Haifa) Israel. We will be having a film called ‘Ada: My Mother The Architect.’ And Ada graduated from The Technion and Ada’s daughter made the film and … will be at the film (screening). And also we’ll have a speaker from Technion speaking. And afterwards they’re doing a dessert buffet at the theater.”

“LUCKY STAR” AND “LOST IN TERRITORIES”

Honig — “We also have a lot of comedies. And this year, I have two that I really love. One is called ‘Lucky Star.’ It’s a French film (titled ‘La Bonne Étoile’). And the other one is ‘Lost in Territories.’ It’s hilarious.”

“PARTING THE WATERS”

Rich — “We’ve got a film about … Michele Kuvin Kupfer, an Israeli Olympic swimmer. She’s originally from Palm Beach, Florida. It’s called ‘Parting the Waters.’ So that’s another film that’s going to be very, very popular.”

“LABORS OF LOVE: THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF HENRIETTA SZOLD”

Honig — “We have five showings of ‘Labors of Love: The Life and Legacy of Henrietta Szold.’ Henrietta Szold founded (Jewish women’s service organization) Hadassah. You probably know of Hadassah Medical Center in Israel. But more than that … she founded nursing in Israel, midwifery, she had a thousands of children from Germany (and Nazi-occupied Europe) brought over to the Youth Aliyah program. They would put up children … in kibbutzes. So it was really fantastic, saved their lives. Henrietta Szold was amazing. But I’m going to tell you what makes it exciting. The filmmaker will be there for two of the showings. And the filmmaker is Abby Ginzberg.”

Honig says that Ginzberg is the granddaughter of the love of Szold’s life, who married another woman. “The granddaughter decided to make this film about the person who loved her grandfather. And what she says, which is really, I think, pretty wonderful is, if Henrietta Szold had married her grandfather, she’d be making matzo ball soup. She’d be, you know, cooking and cleaning. Instead, she changed the world.”

Rich adds, “The Hadassahs are going to put on a big Hadassah event. That’s going to be March 1st and March 2nd. It’s going to be in Movies of Delray and Movies of Lake Worth. So that’s going to be a very big event because the Hadassahs are huge in Southern Florida. They are really going to be flocking to this film.”

“AARON SAPIRO: THE JEW WHO SUED HENRY FORD”

Honig — “So … that is something Jews don’t know about. There was a Jew that sued Henry Ford, I didn’t know this. And (Ford) had to shut down his anti-Semitic, The Dearborn Observer. I think he also had to shut down one of his plants and he had to issue a public apology. Everyone knows that Henry Ford was antisemitic, but they didn’t know about this one courageous man, who was a lawyer, stood up and actually won.”

Rich  — “We’re having Robert Watson…he’s a local professor … from Lynn University. So he’ll … be discussing the film, antisemitism and the historical context and be interviewing the filmmaker Gaylen Ross. That’s what we do. We get speakers, some of them are local, some of them national. We’re more and more trying to get the speakers to come in, just to add some interest to all the films.”

“JERUSALEM ’67”

Honig — ” ‘Jerusalem ’67’ is the first feature film about the Six-Day War in Israel. The film is about a woman, who was sort of a hero, that fought in the war. She was the first, or one of the first women, who were able to pray at The Wailing Wall. Usually the men were there. She was very courageous; had to choose between her kids and the war and she rolled up her sleeves and went to war.”

“THE EVERYTHING POT”

Rich — “Our closing film, which we’ll be announcing fairly soon, we’re going to have a star — Lisa Edelstein. It’s a film called ‘The Everything Pot’ and that’s going to be our closing film at the Movies of Delray. And ‘The Everything Pot’ is a comedy. Do you remember the show ‘House’ on television? He was a doctor. He had a girlfriend; That was Lisa Edelstein.”

Honig — “So ‘The Everything Pot’ is a zany, quirky movie … where this woman, she gets an invitation to a wedding of a former person that she worked with that was much younger than her. And Linda’s (character) is happily married at this point in the film. She buys the (wedding couple) an everything pot. The wedding is canceled and they want their pot back. At one point she climbs over a fence … trying to get the pot back and she falls into their yard. It’s very cute.”