NEW YORK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 2026 Lineup Unveiled
The Jewish Museum and Film at Lincoln Center will showcase nearly 30 films exploring global Jewish stories on screen.
By: A.A. Cristi Dec. 11, 2025
The Jewish Museum and Film at Lincoln Center announce the lineup for the 35th edition of the annual New York Jewish Film Festival (NYJFF), spotlighting the finest documentary, narrative, and short films from around the world that explore the Jewish experience.
Among the oldest and most influential Jewish film festivals worldwide, NYJFF features a series of screenings at Film at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street) from January 14 through January 28, 2026.
The 2026 festival showcases nearly 30 features, documentaries, and shorts (eight narrative features, 13 documentary features, and eight short films), including the latest works by dynamic voices in international cinema.
In the Opening Film of the festival, Once Upon My Mother, an inspiring, emotionally charged, and often humorous drama directed by Ken Scott and based on the autobiographical novel by Roland Perez, the matriarch of a bustling Jewish immigrant family from Morocco in the Parisian suburbs in the 1960s will do anything to give her youngest son the best possible life. This upbeat and miraculous film beautifully demonstrates the complex nuances of a mother’s devotion.
This year’s Centerpiece Film is All I Had Was Nothingness, a new documentary by filmmaker Guillaume Ribot paying tribute to Claude Lanzmann’s 1985 epic, Shoah. The film tells the story of how Lanzmann accomplished the groundbreaking feat of creating an over nine-hour-long masterwork focusing on the evils of the Holocaust, revealing never-before-seen excerpts from more than 200 hours of unreleased footage.
The Closing Film, Fantasy Life, is a captivating comic drama of modern anxiety by Matthew Shear starring Amanda Peet as a wealthy but depressed middle-aged mom whose life intersects with a recently laid-off paralegal (played by Shear) hired to babysit her three daughters while her husband chases his dreams of living the rock-star life. The cast also includes Judd Hirsch, Andrea Martin, Bob Balaban, Jessica Harper, and Zosia Mamet.
Also featured are two historic films highlighting the famous Polish comedy duo Dzigan and Schumacher. I Have Sinned (Al Khet), a long-unseen, genre-defying gem of the 1930s and the first Yiddish sound film made in Poland, mixes melodrama, comedy, and music to tell the story of Esther, a rabbi’s daughter who, during World War I, becomes pregnant by a German Jewish officer, abandons her baby, and flees to the U.S. Set in an orphanage and school near Łódź, Our Children (Unzere Kinder) is a rarely seen classic from post–World War II Poland. The film combines fiction and documentary to address the then-recent suffering of a group of children who had survived the Holocaust and explores the potential of artistic expression as a method of processing trauma.
Additional notable highlights in this year’s festival include:
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Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause, an eye-opening documentary shedding light on the career and life of actor Charles Grodin and revealing his off-screen accomplishments as a social activist devoted to fighting for the wrongly imprisoned
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The Last Spy, a documentary centering on CIA spymaster Peter Sichel—aka the “Jewish James Bond”—who sat down for a wide-ranging interview about his singular life before he died in 2025 at age 102
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A Letter to David, a documentary essay in which filmmaker Tom Shoval pays tribute to his friend David Cunio, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and taken hostage on October 7, 2023
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Maintenance Artist, the first feature documentary about pioneering public artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who became a staple of the 1960s New York avant-garde art scene
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Mazel Tov, a drama about the fragility of family ties and the importance of tradition
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Orna and Ella, a documentary following the two women who owned an iconic Tel Aviv restaurant during the final days of its operation as they reflect on their partnership
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Sapiro v. Ford: The Jew Who Sued Henry Ford, a documentary that tells the story of Jewish lawyer Aaron Sapiro, who brought a libel suit against automobile tycoon Henry Ford in 1927, a landmark moment in U.S. judicial history
The full slate of films with descriptions and showtimes follows below. Details for in-person appearances will be announced at filmlinc.org and nyjff.org.
The films for the 2026 New York Jewish Film Festival were selected by Rachel Chanoff, Lisa Collins, Juliane Camfield, and Aviva Weintraub, with assistance from Sarah Eshaghian.
Tickets will go on sale Thursday, December 18 at noon, with an early access period for Film at Lincoln Center and Jewish Museum Members beginning Tuesday, December 16 at noon. Tickets can be purchased at nyjff.org.
Tickets are $19; $16 for students, seniors (62+), and persons with disabilities; and $14 for FLC and JM Members. A 3+ Film Package is available ($17 general public; $14 for students, seniors, and persons with disabilities; and $12 for FLC Members; excludes Opening Film Once Upon My Mother). Opening Film tickets are $25; $22 for students, seniors (62+), and persons with disabilities; and $20 for FLC and JM Members.
FILM DESCRIPTIONS & SCHEDULE
All films screen at the Walter Reade Theater (165 W 65th Street)
Opening Film
Once Upon My Mother
Ken Scott, 2025, France/Canada, 102m
French with English subtitles
New York Premiere
In this drama set in the 1960s, the matriarch of a bustling Jewish immigrant family from Morocco living in the Parisian suburbs will do anything to give her youngest son the best possible life despite his physical setbacks. Born with a clubfoot, little Roland is unable to walk, yet his mother, Esther (Leïla Bekhti), is undeterred, her determination to help him live “normally” turning into an obsession. The film follows Roland into adulthood, as his relationship with his mother grows increasingly complicated. An adaptation of Roland Perez’s autobiographical novel, the film includes music by Sylvie Vartan, who appears as herself.
Thursday, January 15 at 1:00pm
Thursday, January 15 at 7:00pm
Centerpiece Film
All I Had Was Nothingness
Guillaume Ribot, 2025, France, 95m
French with English subtitles
New York Premiere
This documentary returns to Claude Lanzmann’s landmark 1985 film Shoah, a nine-hour work on the Holocaust drawn from more than a decade of filming. Director Guillaume Ribot revisits the making of the film and Lanzmann’s process, revealing never-before-seen excerpts from over 200 hours of unreleased footage. The result is both a tribute to Shoah and its creator and a significant new contribution to Holocaust cinema and scholarship.
Thursday, January 22 at 2:30pm
Thursday, January 22 at 7:45pm
Closing Film
Fantasy Life
Matthew Shear, 2025, U.S., 91m
New York Premiere
In this comic drama, first-time writer-director-actor Matthew Shear crafts an unexpected tale of connection. Amanda Peet stars as Dianne, a wealthy but depressed middle-aged mom whose life intersects with newly laid-off paralegal Sam (Shear) when he is hired—by his therapist—to babysit her three daughters while her husband is away chasing rock-star dreams. As Sam and Dianne bond over their shared sense of lives slipping out of their control, the film evolves into a sharply observed character study that culminates in a charged family dinner. The cast also includes Judd Hirsch, Andrea Martin, Bob Balaban, Jessica Harper, and Zosia Mamet.
Preceded by:
Animated New Yorkers: Joel
Jack Feldstein, 2024, U.S., 6m
New York Premiere
Animator Jack Feldstein offers a portrait of a former ultra-Orthodox Jewish man describing his first physical encounter with a woman.
Wednesday, January 28 at 1:15pm
Wednesday, January 28 at 7:15pm
Along the River
Gerburg Rohde-Dahl, 2025, Germany, 62m
New York Premiere
In the aftermath of October 7 and the subsequent war in Gaza, a group of Israelis and Palestinians gathered in Germany for a nine-day dialogue seminar. Filmmaker Gerburg Rohde-Dahl films between sessions, capturing participants’ attempts to express trauma, grief, and rage while also reaching for empathy and compassion. The film documents the effort to put aside politics and recognize shared humanity through the simple, difficult act of listening.
Thursday, January 22 at 5:30pm
Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause
James L. Freedman, 2024, U.S., 93m
This documentary profiles actor Charles Grodin, whose work in films such as The Heartbreak Kid, Midnight Run, Beethoven, and Dave made him a comedy mainstay. The film also explores his life as a social activist who spent decades fighting for wrongly imprisoned people and drug law reform. Featuring interviews with Carol Burnett, Ellen Burstyn, Robert De Niro, Marc Maron, Steve Martin, Elaine May, Martin Short, and women whose release from prison he helped secure, the film interweaves career highlights with his off-screen advocacy.
Sunday, January 25 at 6:15pm
Monday, January 26 at 1:00pm
The First Lady
Udi Nir, Sagi Bornstein, 2025, Germany/Israel, 82m
English, French, German, and Hebrew with English subtitles
New York Premiere
This documentary follows Efrat Tilma, a transgender woman who fled Israel in the 1960s after being harassed by police for wearing women’s clothing. Decades later, she returned as the country’s first transgender volunteer in the police force and a prominent LGBTQ+ rights activist. Now 75, she navigates the political and bureaucratic realities of contemporary Israel, confronting discrimination and advocating for the trans community in a shifting landscape.
Tuesday, January 20 at 8:00pm
Frontier / Frontera
Judith Colell, 2025, Spain/Belgium, 101m
Spanish with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Set in 1943, this historical thriller tells the true story of a Spanish village near the French border whose residents defied the Franco regime to help smuggle Jews from Nazi-occupied France to safety. Led by customs officer Manel Grau (Miki Esparbé), the townspeople act in defiance of recent trauma from the Spanish Civil War. Shot on 35mm with vintage lenses, Judith Colell’s film evokes the tension and moral urgency of those who risked everything to do what they believed was right.
Wednesday, January 21 at 2:30pm
Tuesday, January 27 at 5:30pm
Labors of Love: The Life and Legacy of Henrietta Szold
Abby Ginzberg, 2025, U.S., 79m
English and Hebrew with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah, is one of the most influential yet under-recognized American Jewish women of the 20th century. This documentary traces her leadership in establishing modern health care in pre-state Israel—committed to treating Arabs and Jews equally—and her later work spearheading Youth Aliyah, which rescued 11,000 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Europe. Director Abby Ginzberg offers a portrait of Szold’s far-reaching legacy and her belief in the power of humanitarian action.
Tuesday, January 20 at 5:30pm
The Last Spy
Katharina Otto-Bernstein, 2025, U.S./Germany, 86m
English and German with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Before his death at age 102, CIA spymaster Peter Sichel—sometimes called the “Jewish James Bond”—sat down for an extensive interview. His recollections form the core of this documentary, which traces his journey from fleeing Nazi Germany with his family to enlisting in the U.S. Army, recruiting German POWs as spies, and helping build the early CIA. Historical footage and images complement Sichel’s candid, often witty account of a life at the center of 20th-century intelligence history.
Sunday, January 18 at 3:30pm
A Letter to David
Tom Shoval, 2025, Israel/U.S., 74m
Hebrew with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Filmmaker Tom Shoval learned that David Cunio, who had starred in his 2013 feature Youth, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and taken hostage on October 7, 2023, along with his wife and two daughters. In response, Shoval revisits the making of Youth, using audition tapes, raw footage, and behind-the-scenes material to construct a cinematic letter to his friend. The film reflects on memory, collaboration, and the ways cinema can bear witness in the face of violence, without depicting the attacks themselves.
Monday, January 26 at 7:00pm
Maintenance Artist
Toby Perl Freilich, 2025, U.S., 95m
After becoming a mother, artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles declared that her maintenance work—childcare and housework—would be her performance art. This manifesto launched her into the New York avant-garde and led to pioneering projects that connected domestic labor and city sanitation, highlighting how maintenance is valued and who performs it. The film follows Ukeles’s career, including her role as the first artist-in-residence at New York City’s Sanitation Department, and explores how Jewish tradition and social-justice values inform her practice.
Monday, January 19 at 3:30pm
Mazel Tov
Adrián Suar, 2025, Argentina, 97m
Spanish with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Dario Roitman (Adrián Suar) flies from the U.S. back to Argentina for his sister’s wedding and his niece’s Bat Mitzvah, only to learn at the airport that his father has died. Estranged from his father and brothers, he finds himself in the middle of layered family tensions, unresolved conflicts, and competing expectations. The film balances humor and emotion in its portrait of a family confronting grief, tradition, and old wounds.
Thursday, January 15 at 4:00pm
Saturday, January 17 at 7:00pm
My Underground Mother
Marisa Fox, 2025, U.S., 86m
Czech, English, German, Hebrew, Polish, and Yiddish with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Two decades after her mother Tamar’s death, journalist Marisa Fox begins investigating the past her mother never fully shared. The search reveals Tamar’s role as a teenage spy and freedom fighter in a Jewish women’s forced labor camp in Nazi-occupied Sudetenland, and a sisterhood forged in resistance. The film intertwines archival material, testimony, and Fox’s personal journey, examining how one woman refused to be defined by trauma and how a daughter reckons with an inherited, hidden history.
Monday, January 19 at 6:30pm
Tuesday, January 20 at 2:45pm
Neshoma
Sandra Beerends, 2024, Netherlands, 88m
Dutch and English with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Using archival footage, Sandra Beerends evokes the prewar Jewish communities of Amsterdam in a work that moves between documentary and fiction. The film imagines the life of 17-year-old Rusha, her friends, and her family as they navigate post–World War I optimism, economic crisis, rising fascism, and eventual occupation. Rather than a conventional historical essay, the film is a lyrical evocation of a world and a way of life that remain present in memory and images.
Sunday, January 18 at 6:15pm
Orna and Ella
Tomer Heymann, 2025, Israel, 54m
Hebrew with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
When beloved Tel Aviv restaurant Orna and Ella closed after 26 years, it marked the end of a culinary and cultural institution. Director Tomer Heymann, who once worked there, films its final days, capturing the kitchen, the regulars, and the atmosphere that made it a gathering place for open-minded community. The film focuses on owners Orna Agmon and Ella Shine as they look back on their partnership and the life of the restaurant.
Preceded by:
A Bit of Everything and Matzoh Balls Too
Emily Lobsenz, 2025, U.S., 19m
New York Premiere
A short documentary celebrating matzoh ball soup as Jewish comfort food and the family stories and traditions that surround it.
Sunday, January 25 at 3:30pm
Tuesday, January 27 at 2:45pm
Out of Exile: The Photography of Fred Stein
Peter Stein, Dawn Freer, 2021, U.S., 86m
New York City Premiere
This portrait of German Jewish photographer Fred Stein traces his path from fleeing Nazi Germany to becoming an acclaimed street photographer in Paris and New York. His images capture the everyday life and historic moments of the mid-20th century with an emphasis on dignity and humanity. The film also follows the efforts of his son to preserve and share Stein’s legacy.
Sunday, January 25 at 12:45pm
Real Estate
Anat Maltz, 2024, Israel/France, 99m
Hebrew with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Tamara and Adam, a young couple expecting their first child, are forced out of their Tel Aviv apartment and begin searching for more affordable housing in Haifa, Adam’s hometown. Over the course of one day, their search leads to questions about home, identity, and the future they are building together. The film explores generational precarity, financial pressure, and romantic uncertainty with humor and empathy.
Wednesday, January 21 at 8:00pm
The Safe House / La cache
Lionel Baier, 2025, Switzerland/Luxembourg/France, 90m
French with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Set in Paris during May 1968, this film follows a 9-year-old boy sent to stay with his grandparents while his parents join student protests. In his grandparents’ apartment, he is surrounded by relatives, artists, and intellectuals, as political upheaval outside is mirrored by lively debates, family tensions, and unexpected guests within. Adapted from Christophe Boltanski’s novel La cache, the film is a portrait of a free-spirited Jewish family in a moment of social transformation.
Saturday, January 24 at 7:00pm
Monday, January 26 at 4:00pm
Sapiro v. Ford: The Jew Who Sued Henry Ford
Gaylen Ross, 2025, U.S./Canada, 69m
New York Premiere
In 1927, Jewish lawyer Aaron Sapiro brought a libel suit against industrialist Henry Ford after Ford’s newspaper accused him of being part of an international “Jewish conspiracy.” The documentary recounts the case and its context, exploring how Sapiro challenged one of the most powerful men in America and confronted antisemitic slander in court. The film uses archival material and features Ben Shenkman voicing Sapiro’s words.
Wednesday, January 21 at 5:30pm
Wednesday, January 28 at 4:30pm
I Have Sinned / Al Khet
Aleksander Marten, 1936, Poland, 95m
Yiddish with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere of Digital Restoration
Set during and after World War I, this film follows Esther, a rabbi’s daughter who becomes pregnant by a German Jewish officer and abandons her baby before emigrating to the United States. Spanning two decades, the story blends melodrama, comedy, and music, and features Dzigan and Schumacher as a pair determined to reunite Esther with her child. Newly restored by the National Center for Jewish Film with new English translation and subtitles, this is the first Yiddish sound film made in Poland.
Sunday, January 18 at 12:30pm
Our Children / Unzere Kinder
Natan Gross, Shaul Goskind, 1948, Poland, 35mm, 68m
Yiddish with English subtitles
This postwar film mixes fiction and documentary at an orphanage near Łódź, where Dzigan and Schumacher perform Sholem Aleichem’s Kasrilevke Is Burning for young Holocaust survivors. Their performance leads to a conversation with the children about their wartime experiences. The film examines survival, memory, and the role of performance in processing trauma. Restored by the National Center for Jewish Film.
Monday, January 19 at 1:00pm
NYJFF 2026 Shorts Program
This program includes The Suitcase, Blood Ties, Parents, The Cave Synagogue, The Last Jews of Guantanamo, and Double Happiness.
Tuesday, January 27 at 8:15pm
The Suitcase
Laetitia Clareton, 2024, Canada, 5m
French with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
A Quebec filmmaker uses family photographs and archival images to address her late grandmother, seeking a path toward personal and generational healing.
Blood Ties
Tomi Joelah Drucker, 2025, Israel, 13m
Hebrew with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Two teenage sisters navigate grief after the death of their mother, confronting long-simmering tensions and beginning to see one another more clearly in the process.
Parents
Jonas Lajboschitz, 2024, Denmark, 18m
Danish with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
In Stockholm, a Jewish man reconnects with an ex-girlfriend on her wedding day, stirring painful memories and revealing how the past continues to shape both of their lives.
The Cave Synagogue
Peter Decherney, 2024, U.S./Uganda, 8m
Luganda and English with English subtitles
New York Premiere
J.J. Keki, an elder of the Ugandan Jewish community, travels with his sons to a secret cave synagogue used during Idi Amin’s regime, reflecting on resilience, faith, and survival.
The Last Jews of Guantanamo
Yael Bridge, 2024, U.S., 13m
Spanish with English subtitles
New York Premiere
In Guantanamo, Cuba, two women in their eighties prepare for their Bat Mitzvahs in a small Jewish community of about 50 people. The film quietly observes ritual, memory, and continuity.
Double Happiness
Shari Albert, 2025, U.S., 16m
Set during the Christmas holidays, this short centers on a Jewish widow and a Chinese American restaurateur who form an unexpected bond over food, grief, and the possibility of connection.
Videos