Upcoming Events
The Hill Arts
Upcoming Events The Hill Arts
Maine Jewish Film Festival Presents: Never Alone
Never Alone tells the gripping story of Jewish refugees seeking safety in Finland during WWII. As Nazi influence grows, the Finnish-Jewish businessman Abraham Stiller (Ville Virtanen, Netflix's Bordertown) risks everything to protect the refugee community. This powerful film showcases courage, resilience, and the fight for hope amidst overwhelming adversity.
Maine Jewish Film Festival Presents: Torah Tropical
$15 Adv/$20 Door
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There will be a Q and A following the film with producer Heidi Pastor.
〰️ There will be a Q and A following the film with producer Heidi Pastor.
In a tropical paradise turned dystopian by the Drug War, struggling Colombian parents Isska and Menajem reinvent themselves as Orthodox Jews. During a year in which reality and a religious parable collide, they risk everything in an attempt at immigrating to Israel, putting their family and faith to the ultimate test.
Young, charismatic parents Isska and Menajem, along with their daughters Ruth and Jaia, are the model family of Beit David, their community of Orthodox Jewish converts in Cali, Colombia.
Despite the fact that Israel won’t recognize their conversions, Isska and Menajem are willing to do whatever it takes to be accepted as “real Jews.” In the midst of Cali’s most violent year in a decade, Isska and Menajem feel that it's now or never to leave Colombia and find more stability for their daughters.
Because Latin American Orthodox converts are often turned away by Israeli border patrol, the family concocts a plan for getting through: disguising themselves as Christian tourists visiting for Easter.With nerves stretched to a breaking point, the family embarks on a trip to the Promised Land that will put their faith to the ultimate test andchange their lives forever.Torah Tropical tells the universal story of searching for identity and belonging in the face of adversity. Through Isska and Menajem’s struggle to give their daughters a better life, the consequences of economic, racial and religious exclusion are explored with poetic intimacy, invitingaudiences to fall in love with a family that defies stereotypes and inspires us to find hope in the middle of the world’s cruelest intersections
Directed by Jimmy Ferguson, Ezra Axelrod, Gloria Nancy Monsalve
Produced by ThisTopia (David Restrepo, Ezra Axelrod) and Heidi Paster
Photo Credit: Jimmy Ferguson
MJFF Presents: Sephardic Film Festival 2024. Seven Blessings
Seven Blessings is Israel’s official entry for the Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film. Ayelet Menahemi’s Seven Blessings revolves around an eventful Jewish Moroccan family wedding and the traditional blessings that are pronounced during the ceremony, again at the reception, and then again for the next seven nights with loved ones hosting special dinners in the couple’s honor.
MJFF Presents: Sephardic Film Festival 2024. The United States of Fashion Designer Elie Tahari
Fashion Designer and Mogul Elie Tahari has lived the American Dream for over 50 years. He came to New York in 1971, from Israel (born to Iranian parents), with less than $100 in his pocket, slept on benches in Central Park, and went on to build a billion-dollar fashion empire.
The Hill Arts and Maine Jewish Film Festival Present: Born In Chicago followed by The Blues Prophets LIVE
This is the American tale: the immigrant’s odyssey, the survivor’s hymn and the hero’s journey, that hero being the Blues that emerged from the South, came of age in Chicago and ascended to its throne on the stages of the Fillmore and Woodstock." — Terry Abrahamson, Chicago Blues Guide
Maine Jewish Film Festival Presents: Barren
Young Faigi works in a Judaica shop and lives with her husband, Naftali, and his parents in a Haredi community. Married for four years but still childless, Faigi and Naftali yearn for the pregnancy that Naftali insists will come through prayer, not medical intervention.
Maine Jewish Film Festival Presents: March '68
A compelling love story set at a time in Polish history few Americans know about: the virulent wave of antisemitism that swept the country already caught up in the cross-European student uprisings of Spring,
Maine Jewish Film Festival, Jewish Community Alliance, Maine Jewish Museum and The Hill Arts Presents: THE BOY, Israeli Short by Yahav Winner, R.I.P
WINNER, Best Cinematography, Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival 2023
International Competition, Filmschoolfest Munich 2023