Mambo and Mexico City at SF Jewish Film Festival in July

July 18 through August 4 SFJFF celebrates its 39th festival run in the city by the bay with a lineup of selections including film from Latin America, shorts from emerging filmmakers, and a super unique film about Ethiopians of Jewish origin.

Cine+Mas SF is pleased to co-present “Leona” which puts a spotlight on a bi-racial love drama filmed in a tight-knit Jewish community in Mexico City from director Isaac Cherem. Also look for documentary “The Mamboniks” which is followed by a live performance by Club Havanah 1950 on July 27 at The Castro.

Here’s more about the films from SFJFF.

LEONA screens July 21 through August 4. Tickets, here.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA PREMIERE

In the close-knit Jewish community of Mexico City, Ariela, a free-spirited painter, faces pressure to find a suitable husband as all her friends begin settling down and forming families of their own. Although she is content with her work and her independence, Ariela’s life takes a turn when she falls for a man outside her faith. As their relationship blossoms, she struggles to navigate the tumultuous clash between her family’s expectations and her own passions. A clear-eyed depiction of love, both romantic and familial, Leona elucidates the difficulty of reconciling contemporary life with long-held traditions. Naian Gonzàlez Norvind, winner of the award for Best Actress at last year’s Morelia International Film Festival, is the core of Leona. Norvind gives a subtle, textured performance, highlighting the painter’s soulful vulnerability coupled with her conflicting desire to please her family and pursue her own individuality. Told with a deft hand and illuminated by dappled sunlight, Isaac Cherem’s debut feature film touches on a wide range of timely and universal themes, from intersectional feminism to the perennial cross-generational rift between religious and cultural values. More than simply a romantic drama about the mismatch of an interfaith couple, Leona offers a unique window into the realities of self-discovery and the growing pains of adulthood. -Hayleigh Thompson

THE MAMBONIKS screens July 21 through August 3. Tickets, here.

BAY AREA PREMIERE

“Tito Puente played at my wedding,” says ‘Mambo Judie,’ with obvious pride. She is one of the mamboniks, the aging but ever upbeat Jewish aficionados of the Cuban dance craze of the 1950s. Judging by this affectionate documentary, they haven’t lost their bounce as they talk about the effect the sexy Latin dance had on their youth. Cuban dance achieved worldwide popularity in the 1930s and ’40s with the rumba. After World War II Latin bands playing the mambo became wildly popular, with performers like Pérez Prado, Machito and his Afro Cubans, Celia Cruz and the New York-born Puerto Rican timbalero Tito Puente. The great Cuban musicians toured the United States, and Americans went to Havana to enjoy daiquiris and baile at clubs like the famous Tropicana. Director Lex Gillespie takes his camera to Miami Beach, the Catskills and Havana where one of the mamboniks gives a tour of the places in the Cuban capital that he used to frequent back in the day. In New York the epicenter of mambo was the Palladium at 53rd and Broadway. Jews, Blacks and Puerto Ricans mixed happily there in an era when de facto segregation was the rule, even in New York. “If you knew how to dance, you were accepted,” recalls another mambonik. Latin music was ubiquitous at bar and bat-mitzvahs and weddings and ruled at summer resorts in the Catskills. Latin music “appeals to the Jewish soul” explains one of the mamboniks, and such was its popularity that Jewish performers who played the music even began adopting Latin names. The Mamboniks shows this affinity as it really is: a heartfelt, profound and joyous kinship with another culture. -Miguel Péndas

Saturday, July 27 | preceding the Castro screening of The Mamboniks will be a live performance of mambo inspired music by Club Havanah 1950
$22 Members | $25 General Public

Club Havanah 1950 led by Sascha Jacobsen represents the autehntic sound of classic Cuban mambo from the golden age of Cub’s music scene. With a mix of the best Cuban, American, and Jewish musicians in the Bay area, it will be impossible to remain seated during this fiery set. Jacobsen has performed with the Kronos Quartet, Rita Moreno, Hugh Jackman, Bonnie Raitt, and many more throughout his career.