Jewish film festival expands a year after reboot

The Jewish Nevada Film Festival first brought audiences together in 2024 in a rebrand of the long-running Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival. The latter had transitioned to a series of virtual screenings since the start of the pandemic.

“Last year, after the festival was over, I recognized that we didn’t really have any Israeli films,” says Neil Popish, program director at the Jewish Community Center of Southern Nevada.

That concern was rectified this year — there’s also a Colombian documentary (“Torah Tropical”) and a French animated drama (“My Father’s Secrets”) — as part of the rechristened Jewish Nevada International Film Festival.

For his first year in charge, Popish, who also serves as the festival’s director, kept things simple with just six films. This year, 15 movies are scheduled Thursday through Feb. 8 at the Suncoast, the South Point and the Windmill Library. Tickets are $15 per screening or $136 for a festival pass. (For tickets and a full schedule, see jewishnevada.org/filmfestival.)

The Windmill auditorium has about 100 more seats than the other theaters, so it was reserved for what Popish says “were the three films that we felt needed to have a large audience.”

“Four Winters” (6:30 p.m. Jan. 30 at Windmill) talks to some of the last surviving partisans, Jewish men and women who spent four years in the forests during World War II engaging in sabotage and otherwise fighting back against the Nazis. Director Julia Mintz will speak at the screening.

“It is so unbelievably powerful and important to see,” Popish says, noting that the documentary is his favorite film in the festival.

“Song of Ascent” (6:30 p.m. Jan. 28, Windmill) follows Matisyahu as he performs sold-out shows in Israel while facing protesters at his American concerts. “October H8te: The Fight for the Soul of America” (6:30 p.m. Jan. 29, Windmill) looks at the rise of antisemitism following the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.

“There’s a lot of films about Oct. 7 — a lot of films — that have come out in the past year,” Popish says. “And we had to pick and choose which ones we thought would be the best for us.”

“Song of Ascent” and “October H8te” made the cut.

“Some of these documentaries are pretty deep stuff,” Popish says. “But we wanted to make sure we had lighthearted films as well.”

The comedy “Bad Shabbos,” set during a disastrous dinner meeting between the families of an engaged interfaith couple, has proven so popular, a second showing was added. Director Daniel Robbins will speak at the 1 p.m. Jan. 29 screening at the South Point. It’s also playing at 1 p.m. Feb. 2 at the Suncoast.

And the documentaries “Yiddishland” (1 p.m. Feb. 5, South Point) and “The Catskills” (6:30 p.m. Feb. 5, South Point) will be preceded by the short film “A Jew Grows in Brooklyn.” Its star, author and playwright Jake Ehrenreich, will attend both screenings.