Hong Kong and Jewish Film Festivals in July

~ Lincoln Spector

I can’t properly cover all Bay Area’s film festivals – especially now that I’m taking a few weeks off the blog. But I can tell you a little bit about two July festivals, even though I don’t really know much about them yet.

Hong Kong Cinema

New People Cinema and Roxie, July 12 – 14

This small festival will screen seven films over three days. I haven’t seen any of the movies, but here’s what I find interesting based on the press release:

The festival starts with Tracey, a film about a middle-aged man who discovers, pretty late in life, that he’s transgender. Also interesting: G Affairs is described as “a dark story of murder, prostitution, and police corruption.” It was nominated for multiple Hong Kong Film Awards and supported by the First Feature Film Initiative.

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G Affairs

But festival films don’t always have to be serious. Hotel Soul Good is a comedy about a hotel manager (Katy Chow) who sees ghosts. Another comedy, Men on the Dragon, follows a group of workers who join a dragon boat racing team to help their company.

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

All over the Bay Area, July 18 – August 4

I usually cover this festival extensively. Why? I’m Jewish. Of all the Bay Area film festivals focusing on a particular country, ethnicity, gender, race, or sexuality (I call these identity festivals), this is the only one to which I identify.

As I write this, just before I set aside Bayflicks for a few weeks, the Jewish Film Institute has not yet announced the schedule for this year’s festival. By the time you read this, however, you’ll know the schedule weeks before I do.

As I write this (remember I’m taking a few weeks off the blog), the schedule has not yet been announced. By the time you read this, you’ll be able to look that up.

I do know that the opening show is Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles, a documentary about the creation of the Broadway play, Fiddler on the Roof. The San Francisco part of the festival will close with The Red Sea Diving Resort, a fiction film based on a true story about smuggling Ethiopians into Israel in the 1980s.


Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles

Here’s where the Festival will be on any given day:

I’ll write more about this festival when I’m back in action.

Published by Lincoln Spector

Lincoln Spector writes about cinema, technology, and cinema technology. From 1986 through 2008, he wrote Gigglebytes, the first technology-oriented humor column. From 1977 through 2016, he wrote PC World's Answer Line column and blog.