The Nashville Jewish Film Festival, which has been celebrating cinema about Jewish life and culture for 26 years, is happening through Sept. 9.
Hosted by the historic Gordon Jewish Community Center, the festival first began on the 150th anniversary of Congregation Ohabai Sholom, a local synagogue founded in the 1840s, and has projected hundreds of films across the city.
The 11 films being shown this season have been ranked and chosen by a group of 17 volunteers before getting final approval from a recently expanded advisory committee. The genre pool of these films is wide, ranging from serious dramas to light-hearted comedies.
One is "Ethan Bloom," a coming-of-age comedy about a 13-year-old raised in a Jewish family who rebels by converting to
Catholicism. Another is "The Stamp Thief," a docudrama about a "Seinfeld" producer's mission to bring stamp collections stolen from concentration camp victims during the Holocaust back to their families.
Fran Brumlik, who has served as the festival's director for 14 years, says the range of genres is meant to shed light on Jewish life in the U.S. and abroad.
"Film is certainly one of the best ways to educate and show people what's happening in the world," Brumlik said. (The festival) serves as a bridge to our non-Jewish community ... We hope that our non-Jewish neighbors will come ... sit in the theater with us and learn about our shared history."
A schedule and full details can be found at www.nashvillejff.net.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: The Nashville Jewish Film Festival is happening through Sept. 9
