A comedy about an ultra-Orthodox man visiting Egypt, a documentary about Jews in space and a tongue-in-cheek look at Yiddish in Sweden.
Moviegoers in the Monterey Bay area will have a chance to catch some choice Jewish films from Nov. 2 to 16 as part of the Carmel Jewish Film Festival run by Congregation Beth Israel, also in Carmel.
The fest kicks off with 2023’s “No Name Restaurant,” a road trip movie of sorts about accepting each other’s humanity in the face of differences. In it, a young haredi man from Brooklyn who is visiting Jerusalem travels to Egypt to complete a minyan for Passover. When his journey hits unexpected snags, a Bedouin looking for his camel steps in to help.
“No Name Restaurant” will screen Nov. 2 at Carmel-by-the-Sea’s Golden Bough Playhouse, followed by an optional dinner at Flaherty’s Restaurant in Carmel.
“The Other,” a 2024 documentary, will screen Nov. 6 at Beth Israel. It tracks the lives of activists who pursue Israeli-Palestinian coexistence, both before and since the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. “It is much easier to remain in your righteousness and root down into your own narrative, pain and suffering,” director Joy Sela said in a statement. “It is much harder to hold space for a truth that contradicts your own and acknowledge pain and suffering from ‘the other side’ while still experiencing your own.”
Another documentary, “Ain’t No Back to a Merry Go Round,” will screen Nov. 8. The film examines how a Jewish community supported Black students at Howard University in desegregating a Maryland amusement park in 1960. Directed by Ilana Trachtman, it tells an inspiring story of solidarity and received a 2022 completion grant from the Jewish Film Institute, which presents the annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
On Nov. 9, the Monterey Museum of Art will host 2024’s “The Plunderer: The Life and Times of a Nazi Art Thief.” In it, historian Jonathan Petropoulos meets Bruno Lohse, who served as an “art adviser” to high-ranking Nazi leader Hermann Göring and was responsible for looting Jewish-owned art. The event will include a reception, screening and post-film discussion attended by Petropoulos.
A series of short films will play on Nov. 13, including “Fiddler on the Moon,” which looks at Jews who’ve gone to space and even imagines what Judaism would look like somewhere other than Earth. It features a series of interviews, including with rabbis and the Jewish astronauts Jeffrey Hoffman and Jessica Meir.
On Nov. 15, the “Sabbath Queen” arrives. Filmed across two decades, it features Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, who is a drag queen and part of a line of 38 generations of rabbis. The documentary was the closing-night feature at last year’s S.F. Jewish Film Festival.
The Carmel film fest finishes up on Nov. 16 with “Swedishkayt: Yidlife Crisis in Stockholm.” Two Canadian comedians, Eli Batalion and Jamie Elman, travel to Sweden to take a gander at Jewish life in the Scandinavian world. The film includes footage of them examining Swedish bagels and learning about Yiddish speakers interspersed with bits from their stand-up show. As Elman puts it: “There’s Yidn in Sweden? You must be kiddin’!”