The Jewish Film Institute’s 13th annual WinterFest — two days of new independent films about Jewish life, culture, and history — takes place this weekend at San Francisco’s Vogue Theater.
Eleven narrative, documentary, and short films about subjects ranging from the Oct. 7 attack to love and romance, some of them made by top international directors, will screen Saturday and Sunday.
Day one begins with “Strangers, Neighbors & Kin,” a program of three short films: “Carol and Joy,” featuring actor Carol Kane and her 98-year-old mother; “Snipped,” a Danish comedy about an unconventional circumcision ceremony; and “Double Happiness,” a late-in-life romance.
Next comes “All I Had Was Nothingness,” a French documentary about Claude Lanzmann, director of the epic Holocaust documentary “Shoah,” and his 12-year effort to put the film together.
“Benita,” a documentary about experimental filmmaker Benita Raphan, directed by her friend and mentor Alan Berliner, also shows on Saturday. “Once Upon My Mother,” a 1960s-set French drama about a mother-son relationship, follows.
Sunday begins with “Parallel Lenses,” a program of two Israeli documentary shorts — “Kfar Aza: 95% Heaven (Episode 1: Destruction)” and the Oscar-nominated “Children No More: Were and Are Gone” — about the reverberations of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack for Israeli residents and activists.
A 12-year-old Palestinian boy is the protagonist of “The Sea,” an Ophir Award–winning depiction of childhood under an occupation.
Laszlo Nemes, director of the Oscar-winning Holocaust drama “Son of Saul,” is on the slate with “Orphan,” his 1950s-set Hungarian story about a Jewish boy who learns unsettling truths about his personal history.
“Yes,” a satire from Nadav Lapid (“Synonyms,” “Ahed’s Knee”), whose films have been vividly critical of Israeli policies, closes the fest. The story involves a musician commissioned to write a patriotic anthem after Oct. 7.
For more information about WinterFest 2026, visit jfi.org.
About three dozen films featuring queer stories and experiences will screen at the daylong Emeryville International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, Saturday at the AMC Bay Street 16.
Produced by Fishnets & Film, the second annual event, formerly called Drag Me to the Cinema, includes four programs of short films: “Pure. Queer. Joy” (“short films that lift our spirits”); “Rated Q” (“pure queerness”); “Fun in Shorts” (presented by Frameline); and “Drag Me to the Cinema” (short films plus drag routines).
The celebratory event includes a Hollywood-inspired red-carpet entryway and a community engagement area.
Visit fishnetsfilm.org for more information.
The popular “Oscar-Nominated Shorts” are back, and showing in Bay Area theaters.
Presented by filmmaker Taika Waititi, three full-length programs, collectively featuring every Academy Award nominee in the Animated, Documentary, and Live Action short-film categories, are available.
The featured shorts, from around the world, range from an animated tale about a bear cub to a documentary about a vigil honoring children killed in Gaza to a live-action comedy about a pub sing-off.
The nominees are:
- Animated: “Butterfly,” “Forevergreen,” “The Girl Who Cried Pearls,” “Retirement Plan,” “The Three Sisters.”
- Documentary: “All the Empty Rooms,” “Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud,” “Children No More: Were and Are Gone,” “The Devil Is Busy,” “Perfectly a Strangeness.”
- Live Action: “Butcher’s Stain,” “A Friend of Dorothy,” “Jane Austen’s Period Drama,” “The Singers,” “Two People Exchanging Saliva.”
Visit oscarnominatedshorts.com for more information.
Down-to-earth humanity and apocalyptic horror coexist stirringly in “Sirat,” Spanish filmmaker Oliver Laxe’s pulsating, devastating road tale turned psychodrama.
Set in the Moroccan Sahara, the story opens at a rave gathering. Electronic music blasts from gigantic speakers and partiers dance jubilantly as Luis (Sergi Lopez), a middle-aged Spaniard accompanied by his preteen son, Esteban (Bruno Nunez), and their dog, Pipa, searches for his missing grown daughter, Mar, a raver, among the crowd.
Unable to find Mar, Luis follows a makeshift family of nomadic revelers (Stefania Gadda, Jade Oukid, Tonin Janvier, Richard Bellamy, Joshua Liam Henderson) who are headed for another rave where he hopes she will be.
Meanwhile, armed soldiers appear. World War III is coming.
A bond forms between Luis and Esteban and their free-spirited, tattooed fellow travelers as they drive through harsh terrain. Luis helps the group pay for gas; the group rescues Luis, Esteban, and their ill-equipped minivan from a scrape. In one of many enjoyable camaraderie scenes, a character removes his prosthesis and, with his knee, performs a goofy puppet act.
Tragedy strikes, horrifically and repeatedly. The travelers find themselves at the mercy of nature, war, and their own anguished minds. The trip becomes a contemplative, surreal journey into doom and madness.
Laxe, co-writing with Santiago Fillol, keeps the details spare. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, this, along with the tonal shift, might be alienating.
But the movie triumphs, and hits us deeply, due to a range of factors: an evocative electronic score; exquisite desert cinematography; a wonderfully soulful performance by Lopez; engaging work by the nonprofessional actors playing the ravers (cast from Europe’s Free Party movement); and Laxe’s driving belief that people are kind.
Laxe, who gifts his surviving characters with a hint of hope at the end, has delivered a penetrating consideration of human existence and a beautiful, uplifting picture of friendship.
The film’s title refers to a narrow bridge in Islamic scripture that connects paradise with hell.
Currently at the AMC Kabuki 8.
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