About The Festival:
The Joan and Murray Gefen Memorial Savannah Jewish Film Festival is an exhibition of international cinema that promotes and celebrates the diversity of Jewish history, culture and experience through film.
Founded in 2003 to honor the lives of Joan and Murray Gefen who were committed members of the Savannah Jewish Community and avid fans of film, the SJFF is presented in partnership by the Savannah Jewish Federation and the Jewish Educational Alliance.
Our Mission:
To promote the preservation of Jewish culture through diverse points of view.
Provide a venue within the Savannah area for independent filmmakers working with Jewish themes.
To build Jewish community by offering films that illuminate important societal topics.
Encourage innovation, vitality and creativity within Jewish culture.
Highlight films that place Jewish themes in new contexts or challenge long-held assumptions.
Provide films that offer a constructive critique of Jewish identity and reconsider major cultural guideposts such as Zionism, the Holocaust and assimilation.
Expose the widest possible audience to a low-cost, low-barrier entry into the Jewish experience from a current and historical global perspective.
To present films that will engage and build bridges between the Jewish Community and the wider Savannah Community.
