After recent Paris terror attacks, and in an increasingly violent and anti-Semitic atmosphere, a young secular Jewish law student questions whether she has become a target in the country she so dearly loves.

In 1968 a group of civil rights leaders flew to Israel to study land-based cooperative living and created New Communities, one of the largest Black-owned land trusts in America. This film follows the opposition they faced and the victories they achieved toward economic self-sufficiency in the wake of Jim Crow segregation.  —Zoe Pollak

Directors Helen Cohen and Mark Lipman in person.

A 90-year-old Jewish woman reflects on her life’s experiences as she prepares to taste bacon for the first time. Sundance Jury Award, Best Short Documentary

Told through 8mm and 16mm home movies found after being stored in a wardrobe for over 50 years, this intimate family story hints at something unspoken: snatches of tales of those left behind, of silence about the past, of absences unexplained, of non-existent family members.

After 16 years as a disaffected museum guard, Iris is finally offered a promotion. A careless mistake with a priceless work of art, however, forces her to decide how far she is willing to go to secure her rise up the social ladder.

The great French actor, Marcel Dalio (Renoir’s Grand Illusion), made a career in French cinema of playing shady characters and small-time crooks: informers, blackmailers and gangsters. In other words, the stereotypical Jew. Landing in American cinema after fleeing the Nazis, he was no longer “the Jew,” but now “the Frenchman.” Filmmaker Mark Rappaport presents us with two Dalios, or are they the same?

Joseph Feingold, a Polish Holocaust survivor donates the violin he’s had for 70 years to a local instrument drive, changing the life of a 12-year-old schoolgirl from the nation’s poorest congressional district and unexpectedly, his own.

Academy Award–nominated filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar present engaging documentary about the creation of a new opera, Morning Star. This intimate look into the artistic process introduces composer Ricky Ian Gordon as he attempts to bring 11 years of ideation to life. With the help of librettist William M. Hoffman and stage director Ron Daniels, conservatory students fill out a 10-day workshop cast with hopes of turning a fragmented work into full-blown operatic magic. Artists and admirers alike will take away a new appreciation for the joys and challenges of process and creation. —Neha Talreja

Directors Julia Reichert and Steve Bogner in person in San Francisco and Berkeley

Few have heard of Jack Pashkovsky. This unassuming Russian Jewish émigré parlayed his love for movies into becoming the self-appointed, unpaid chronicler of Hollywood royalty during the 1930s and ’40s with his relaxed, un-glam portraits. Before there were paparazzi, let alone Instagram and selfie sticks, there was Pashkovsky. —Mark Valentine

An intimate look into the lives of energetic eight-year-old Yousef and his deaf mother, Sahar, the last Palestinian residents of a deserted apartment building in the Israeli-controlled district of Hebron.

A single mom works as a human drone operator, killing people on a daily basis in order to make a living. How much of that spills into her home life?

Anny, a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor, loves dressing up for the Jewish holiday Purim. She is the champion of her Israeli retirement home’s costume contest since she moved in three years ago. Anny survived Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and lost her parents in Auschwitz. This year, she decides to dress up as a chicken.

Former Berkeley resident Jo Milgrom's outsider art mixes Torah and trash. The 87-year-old artist/feminist Jewish thinker scavenges Jerusalem dumpsters for choice junk that she combines with worn-out ritual objects rescued from synagogues and funeral homes. Armed with only a glue gun, she challenges the religious establishment by juxtaposing the sacred and the mundane in her assemblages. This rich visual portrait will forever change the way you see a trash can. —Joshua Moore

In a story inspired by the director’s childhood, a neurotic Jewish teen must win over his crush by impressing her skeptical Jamaican family in 1990s New York City.

After the sudden passing of his wife, a composer (Richard Kind) tries to ignore his overwhelming grief only to be faced with a 20-piece marching band that floods his world with a boisterous, interminable song.