Six selections from the 2025 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival

Reviewing new festival films about Charles Grodin, Leni Riefenstahl, street sign wars, a wild Shabbat dinner, a trans soccer ref, and a gun-toting rabbi.

The annual Atlanta Jewish Film Festival got underway on Wednesday, and a representative of the festival was kind enough to grant me access to some of the films. Here are reviews of six of those films, which should be arriving for general release, or possibly at other local Jewish film festivals, in the near-to-medium future.

Charles Grodin: Rebel With a Cause

A world premiere at the AJFF, this film, directed by James L. Freedman, is a fairly straightforward documentary about the late actor. We learn a lot about Grodin the man, the actor, and the activist, with his virtues extolled by an extremely star-studded group of talking heads, led by Steve Martin, Martin Short, Elaine May, Robert De Niro, and both Simon and Garfunkel (interviewed separately, of course.)

If you saw Remembering Gene Wilder, it’s a pretty similar treatment of Grodin.

Grodin, who died in 2021 at age 86, did a lot of notable things in his life: He was a leading man in the ‘70s, at a time when Jewish men who weren’t necessarily traditionally handsome got their day in the sun, but had an acting career that expanded far in both directions from there.

Grodin was also an activist and, for a time in the ‘90s, the host of a talk show on CNBC, which had him delivering everything from earnest social commentary to blow-by-blow O.J. trial analysis. But that wasn’t Grodin’s greatest contribution to the talk show medium- with his perpetually perturbed turns on Carson and Letterman, he goes on the short list of the greatest late night talk show guests of all time, along with Robin Williams, Don Rickles, Bob Uecker and Norm MacDonald.

The biggest laugh in the film, though, is when we see the late Alan Arkin, on a Zoom call where “Alan Arkins iPad (4)” is visible in the corner.

Riefenstahl

“She’s probably the greatest woman filmmaker in history,” a film professor of mine once said of Leni Riefenstahl. “But the feminists kind of have a problem with her because she’s a Nazi.”

Riefenstahl was a very talented and consequential filmmaker who came up with innovations that have endured- there’s even famously a Triumph of the Will homage at the end of Star Wars. But yes, she also made propaganda films for Hitler.

Directed by Andres Veiel, Riefenstahl is a first-rate archival documentary that not only masterfully wields footage, but seems to prove that Riefenstahl was a bit more complicit in Nazi atrocities than she’s always claimed.

Riefenstahl made those propaganda films for Hitler, the war ended… and then she lived nearly 60 more years, passing away in 2003 at age 101. I still remember the beloved actor John Ritter passing away, at just 54, the same week she did, and Lewis Black ranting on The Daily Show that the Nazi propagandist had lived almost twice as long.

In those 60 years, Riefenstahl spent a lot of time going on talk shows and defending herself, often against hostile intercolators. It’s chilling, but illuminating at the same time.

Normally I hate white-on-white subtitles, but in her case, it’s somewhat apropos.

Torn: The Israel-Palestine War on NYC Streets

You’ve probably seen the videos on social media hundreds of times: There’s a poster of one of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, someone tears that poster down, and someone else yells at them.

Torn, directed by Nim Shapira, is a documentary about this ugly phenomenon, which has repeated itself over and over since October 7, mostly in New York City but also sometimes in other cities.

I liked that the film gives everyone their say while also demonstrating a couple of other things: That, in the end, the presence and the tearing of the posters probably don’t have much effect on the hostages or their fates, and there’s way too much smug assholery in the online influencer space related to Israel/Palestine, and neither side has a monopoly on it.

Sapir

A compelling documentary, directed by Liran Atzmor, about Sapir Berman, an Israeli woman who is the world’s only transgender professional soccer referee. And not only that, but she’s only woman referee in Israel’s premier league.

Not only do we witness Sapir’s work as a ref – how many documentaries have ever centered around a sports ref, for any reason? — but also on the process of her gender transition.

It’s a worthwhile corrective, after a year in which everyone in America has lost their minds over trans people in sports.

Bad Shabbos

Bad Shabbos is one of my favorite types of movies- a door-slamming farce, set inside a too-cramped Upper West Side apartment, with too many overbearing Jewish relatives in too small a space.

David Paymer and Kyra Sedgwick are the parents, whose son (Jon Bass) is bringing home his in-the-process-of-converting fiancee (Meghan Leathers), whle his sister (Milana “Lily from AT&T” Vayntrub) has a douchebag boyfriend (Ashley Zukerman, the guy Shiv had an affair with on Succession.) The third sibling is Adam (Theo Taplitz), the sort of skinny nerd who sees joining the IDF as his salvation. Method Man is also on hand, as an unusually devoted doorman.

The setup is outstanding, but the film has a twist that’s just a bit too callous for my comfort, and knocks the film’s stakes way off course.

(Note- I saw this one at a local screening here in Philly last year, but it’s in the AJFF lineup.)

Guns & Moses

Here’s another feature with an outstanding premise that later goes off the rails.

Mo Zaltzman (Mark Feurstein) is a Chabad rabbi in a California desert town. When there’s an apparent hate crime, the rabbi must confront some longtime assumptions- and that includes becoming conversant with firearms.

The film’s title and longline make it sound like a shoot-‘em-up, with a rabbi as the hero. But that’s not really what’s going on here- for one thing, it’s way more morose than that. One gets the sense that Rabbi Mo missed his calling and would have preferred to be a police detective rather than a rabbi.

Guns & Moses ultimately settles into a plot that’s way too busy, and has so many twists that it renders the original premise kind of meaningless. It’s a lesson in tolerance, a murder mystery, a procedural, and a look at whether Jews should arm themselves.

And finally, after the first attack, wouldn’t the national Chabad organization would step in and have his back?

The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, which extends through March 16, has an online component, which can be accessed here.