ABOUT THE WJFF

The Washington Jewish Film Festival is truly an exhibition of international cinema that celebrates the wonderful diversity of Jewish history, culture and experience through the moving image.

The WJFF is presented by the Washington DCJCC's Morris Cafritz Center for the Arts.  Each year since 1990, the Festival brings to the nation's capital films that bring to life issues and create dialogues about issues the Jewish experience, with a particular emphasis on seeking unexpected stories and debunking stereotypes. 

The Washington Jewish Film Festival seeks to:

>Promote the preservation of Jewish culture and a diversity of narratives. The Festival provides a forum for films with Jewish themes that most often do not otherwise find a place for public exhibition in the Washington area.  Many of the films we screen only have a life on the Festival circuit and in specialty DVD-release. 

>Encourage innovation and vitality within Jewish culture.  The Festival highlights films that place Jewish themes in new contexts or challenge long-held assumptions.  The WJFF is at the forefront of presenting films that provide a constructive critique of Jewish identity and reconsider major cultural guideposts such as Zionism, the Holocaust and assimilation as well as the place of women, homosexuals and other people of diverse backgrounds and lifestyles in Jewish life and tradition. 

>Expose the widest possible audience to a low-cost, low-barrier entry to the Jewish culture.  Because the Jewish Diaspora has interacted with numerous host cultures over the course of its long history, the Festival seeks out films that examine some aspect of the Jewish experience are quite often a prism through which to view multiple cultures.

>Provide a forum for audiences to interact with filmmakers and for filmmakers to receive feedback. Filmmakers attending the Festival engage in open and energetic dialogues with our audiences.  Through our works-in-progress program for uncompleted projects, the Festival provides new and veteran filmmakers opportunities to screen, works-in-progress portions of their films for an audience at a critical point in their creative process.

>Recognize those filmmakers with a body of work that exemplifies the goals and mission of the WJFF.  The annual WJFF Visionary Award is presented to outstanding filmmakers in recognition of their courage, creativity and insight in presenting the diversity of the Jewish experience through the moving image.  The 2009 recipient is acclaimed German filmmaker Michael Verhoeven.  The inaugural award in 2008 was presented to the outstanding documentarians Charles Guggenheim (z"l) and Grace Guggenheim.  In 2006, in celebration of the 10th year of the 16th Street J's return to its current home, the WJFF presented the Decade Award to Eytan Fox for his contributions to the field of Jewish film.    

 
THANK YOU TO OUR FESTIVAL CO-SPONSORS

...AND EVENING SPONSORS
■ CHARLOTTE AND JACOB LEHRMAN FOUNDATION ■ CROSSCURRENTS FOUNDATION
■ MELINDA BIEBER AND NORMAN POZEZ ■ LOUIE AND RALPH DWECK
■ BARBARA AND MICHAEL SMILOW ■ DAVID BRUCE SMITH FAMILY FOUNDATION
■ ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS AND SCIENCES/ACADEMY FOUNDATION