LOS ANGELES JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL
By Sarah A. Spitz
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 6/18/25 – He was gay in England when homosexuality was illegal. He was Jewish at a time of subterranean but omnipresent antisemitism, not just in England but everywhere (that hasn’t changed much). And he was the manager who brought The Beatles to the top of the pop charts and the attention of the world.
Brian Epstein’s life is the focus of Midas Man, the movie that not even COVID could stop. The Los Angeles premiere takes place at the red-carpet Opening Night Gala for the 20th anniversary of the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival, June 26 at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, with a Valley premiere on Sunday, June 29 at Laemmle Town Center 5 in Encino. The festival runs through July 1.
Hilary Helstein, founder and director of LAJFF, says that unlike previous years, there isn’t a “theme” uniting the seven screenings, other than a focus on the arts. “These films are not about what’s going on now. From my perspective, there’s just so much fear and destruction happening in the world that people need to go to a safe place where they can engage in a story that feels like relief.”
She described the eclectic line-up during a Zoom interview.
“With Midas Man it’s about the music of the Beatles and Brian Epstein’s role in creating the phenomenon they became, and how he navigated being both gay and Jewish. In The Glory of Life we have a sweeping epic about one of the leading literary lights of the 20th century, Franz Kafka. Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause shares the story of this beloved Hollywood actor and shines a light on his lesser known but extraordinary humanitarian work.
“The LA premiere of From Darkness to Light is a documentary about the legend of Jerry Lewis’s never-released Holocaust drama, The Day the Clown Cried, considered cinema’s most notorious unseen movie. We’ll also have the LA Premiere of Plunderer: The Life and Times of a Nazi Art Thief. There’s a shorts program including two films, a documentary Fiddler on the Moon: Judaism in Space and a narrative film, Opening Night, about an Israeli film director making his festival debut competing against a famous Israeli director, who happens to be his girlfriend’s ex.
“And in a special surprise, the festival’s closing night happens to be the birthday of another actor, Mike Burstyn, beloved in the Jewish community and beyond, who’s starring in a very popular German TV series called The Zweiflers. It won the Best Series Award at The Cannes International Series Festival, and we’ll be screening two episodes and honoring Mike for his lifetime achievement as a performer.”
There are Q&As following each of the screenings, offering in-depth conversations with the filmmakers and other experts, enriching audience engagement with the films and their subjects.
“For the Gala LA premiere of Midas Man,” Helstein told me, “Not only will the screenwriter Brigit Grant and director Stephenson be on stage, but Jonah Lees who plays John Lennon in the film, will perform as John. Beatles expert Martin Lewis will lead the conversation.” Lewis was mentored by Epstein’s assistant Derek Taylor, who after Epstein’s tragically early death, took on the crucial role of handling publicity for the Beatles.
Lewis spearheaded the campaign to induct Epstein into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, and was instrumental in getting his 1964 autobiography, A Cellarful of Noise, re-printed in 1998.
Adding a dash of whimsy to the red-carpet Gala opening, there’ll be a black runner painted with white crosswalk stripes in front of an Abbey Road backdrop for photos and selfies.
Other notable post-screening discussions include Plunderer, which will be shown at The Museum of Tolerance on Sunday, June 29. LA art restitution attorney Randol Schoenberg (portrayed by Ryan Reynolds in the film Woman in Gold)—who successfully argued the case that got the stolen painting returned to its rightful owner, Maria Altmann—is joined by historian Jonathan Petropoulos. He wrote the book Göring’s Man in Paris: The Story of a Nazi Art Plunderer and his World that became the basis for this documentary about the notorious dealer Bruno Lohse. He was tasked with stealing the best works for Göring’s personal collection and continued dealing post-war, ending with a secret vault filled with works by some of world’s greatest artists, discovered after his death.
German filmmaker Judith Kaufmann was a Michael Ballhaus fellow in 2020 at the Villa Aurora, the Thomas Mann House in the Pacific Palisades, and her film The Glory of Life will screen on Saturday, June 29 at Laemmle Town Center 5. Jeffrey High, a leading international scholar on Kafka and Professor of German Studies at CSULB leads the post-screening discussion.
The JFFLA began in a Jewish community center in the West Valley in 2006 and grew by leaps and bounds over the years. From the beginning, Helstein insisted that the films be screened in theatres, not just in a community center. It has attracted a loyal audience, with venues balanced between City and Valley. No longer just a once-a-year, the COVID pandemic gave Helstein the chance to experiment with Zoom screenings, that started with a bang.
“During the pandemic we were trying to figure out what to do to continue the festival. We tried Zoom screenings. I was friends with Maria Schrader, the director of the wildly popular series Unorthodox. And I emailed asking if she would you do a Zoom Q&A. 500 people came on. It was crazy. It was the day the George Floyd riots broke out. And people just didn’t want to go out. They were so happy to immerse themselves in the story of learning how this German non-Jew came to direct this very Jewish series.”
As the festival expanded, one-night-only special screening events have begun to fill in the full calendar all year long with curated film experiences. From studios to award-winning filmmakers, everyone wants the LAJFF fan audience to screen important new films ahead of their release schedules.
“Most festivals are annual-only events, condensing everything into a short time frame. Thanks to COVID, we’re now doing monthly programs, which give people the opportunity to get together, see a movie and talk about it on a monthly basis instead of just once a year.”
As for this year’s in-person, in-cinema events, Helstein says “I am excited, and I think people are excited to have a place to go for relief and to be engaged in something really meaningful.”
Tickets and information available here: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/los-angeles-jewish-film-festival-2025-4398773
