Award-winning filmmaker and Missouri native Tracy Droz Tragos, director of the Sundance Grand Jury Award–winning documentary Rich Hill and Emmy-winning Be Good Smile Pretty confronts the power of Missouri’s restrictive abortion laws by sensitively telling the intimate stories of women who must surmount every obstacle to access abortion. This timely and relevant film reveals the ultimate connection between the right to choose and the right to live a fully empowered life. —Lexi Leban

Two brothers, Izak and Shepsel, were born in a displaced persons camp after World War II. They lived their entire lives in the shadow of secrets kept from them by the people closest to them. The brothers were separated as babies, neither was told the other existed. An investigation into the mysterious history of their birth family led to an amazing reunion after six decades. The film offers a rare glimpse into the displaced persons camps in post World War II Germany, showing the vibrant and sometime wild social life that flourished among the young survivors. This period has hardly been dealt with on the screen until now.

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.

Art and Heart, Catherine Tambini’s spirited documentary celebrates the life of Isaiah Sheffer, the founding artistic director of Symphony Space and host of Selected Shorts on public radio who inspired everyone from Leonard Nimoy to Stephen Colbert. Paired with Making Morning Star. Academy Award–nominated filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s intimate documentary relates the creation of Morning Star, a new opera by composer Ricky Ian Gordon as he brings 11 years of ideation to life. —Neha Talreja Preceded by Making Morning Star

Fifteen-year-old Audrie Pott in Saratoga, California, and 14-year-old Daisy Coleman in Maryville, Missouri never met. What connects them is the sexual violence and humiliation they suffered in unrelated incidents from groups of boys who got them drunk, assaulted them and posted their actions on the internet. Thanks to probing interviews with strikingly perceptive subjects, this film provides unflinching insight into the entitlement that leads to the condoning of sexual violence. —Zoe Pollak Screened at 2016 Sundance Film Festival

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

Humorously examining Anglo-Jewish life of the 19th and 20th centuries, directors Gur Bentwich and Maya Kenig embark on a road trip to dissect the origins of their family. An array of aunts and cousins hold court, as well as long-departed Bentwiches, who come to life through zany Monty Python-esque animation. In the end, we become Bentwiches-by-proxy, crammed into the back seat of the family car, enjoying the ride. —Alexis Whitman Preceded by Spring Chicken, Dir. Tamir Elterman.

This inspiring documentary finds a spirit of compassion and empathy in an unexpected place: among combatants from both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian divide. Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters come together to form Combatants for Peace, a nonviolent group that uses dialogue, theater and art to try to end the conflict. Disturbing the Peace doesn’t shy away from harsh realities and, somehow, still leaves you inspired. —Tamar Fox Director Stephen Apkon in person Preceded by Hitchhikers, Dir. Yair Agmon

What’s the definition of a mensch? After watching this inspiring documentary, you’ll have a two-word answer: Evan Wolfson. Founder of the advocacy group Freedom to Marry and the acknowledged “godfather” of the marriage equality movement, Wolfson’s 30-year struggle to bring about justice for millions of gays and lesbians is the heart of this fascinating history that retraces the circuitous path towards legalizing same-sex marriage in the United States. —Peter L. Stein

From 1942 until the end of the war, Brunhilde Pomsel worked as a stenographer for Joseph Goebbels, the infamous Nazi minister of propaganda. Now 105 years old, she is the last living witness to have seen the machinations of Nazi power from the inside. With her face in close-up, she recounts her past with lucidity and forces us to ask the timely question, “What would I have done in this situation?” —Jay Rosenblatt

This thoughtful documentary is a subtle examination of the history of Germany’s postwar Jewish population and of the fraught and fragile relations between Jews and non-Jews. Structured around a dinner party attended by Germans and Jews—some of whom were born in Germany, some who are “Germans by choice”—the film negotiates sensitive questions of memory, guilt, identity and redemption with grace and aplomb while giving access to both sides of a crucial historical dialogue. —Seth Barron *SJM: Single Jewish Mom Free Screening

In Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo, Israelis and Palestinians work alongside one another to tend to the zoo’s elephants, crocodiles and rhinos. Inevitably, tensions within and across animal species reflect themselves in the mostly good-natured, always edgy interactions between employees, who lead regular tours of Muslim and Jewish schoolchildren through the zoo’s grounds. Katharina Waisburd’s keen eye results in an unforgettable lens into the current conflict in the Holy Land. Preceded by The Mute’s House. —Zoe Pollak

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.

Where can you find the best hummus in the world? From Suheila, a single Muslim woman who is known for her legendary hummus, to Jalil, a Christian Arab hipster in Ramle who runs his father’s hummus joint, to Eliyahu, a born-again Orthodox Jew who owns a hummus restaurant chain, this fun and fascinating film about the highly competitive hummus restaurant business in Israel shows how powerful this chickpea spread can be. —Tamar Fox

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?

True life characters are often more compelling than fictional ones. A filmmaker’s childhood image from a forgotten home movie; a 90-year-old ready to eat bacon for the first time; a violinist parting with his sacred instrument, which changes the life of a 12-year-old schoolgirl; a legendary actor with dual identities, French and Jewish. These are subjects of this year's emotionally compelling documentary shorts program. - Joshua Moore

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.

Extreme in his anti-Semitic beliefs and denial of the Holocaust, Csanád Szegedi rose up through the ranks to a leading position in Hungary’s far-right Jobbik Party, and became a member of the European Parliament. At the height of his political career, documentation surfaced showing that Szegedi’s maternal grandparents were Jewish. In a stunning about-face, Szegedi chose to explore his Jewish roots, study Judaism and make a trip to Auschwitz with Holocaust survivors. —Sara L. Rubin