It’s the beginning of the 2020 school year, and the senior class of Oakland (California) High School is ready…
Renata Polt
Renata Polt, a freelance writer and critic, is the translator and editor of A Thousand Kisses: A Grandmother's Holocaust Letters.
It’s back: the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the oldest and still the largest festival of its kind, has…
Aw shoot! I forgot to wear my new tight-fitting black Levi’s to the Levi’s show! But then, I was…
If it’s July, it must be the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival—the 39th edition this year. And as always,…
This year’s San Francsico Silent Film Festival starts and ends with film icon Buster Keaton’s films: “The Cameraman” on…
With 67 films from 23 countries, this year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival–the 38th–remains the world’s largest, and, of course,…
It started in 1996 with three silent films in one day; this year, the now almost-venerable festival will present twenty-three…
By now, Bay Area folks might be feeling the urge for a film festival: the San Francisco International fest doesn’t…
When I wrote an article on Jewish film festivals for Hadassah magazine 14 years ago, the San Francisco Jewish film…
Everybody has heard of T. E. Lawrence–“Lawrence of Arabia”–adventurer, explorer, expert on what’s now called the Middle East. Certainly every…
Father’s Day, wedding day, graduation–all important June occasions. And, of course, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, June 1st to…
Don’t feel embarrassed if you suddenly burst out laughing while viewing the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s exhaustive–but not exhausting–show of Roz…
Big cities in the warmer latitudes–Rome and Athens come to mind–all seem to have their cadres of “street cats”: not-quite-feral…
Fritz Bauer isn’t exactly a household name in the United States–nor, I suspect, in Germany, his birthplace. And yet it…