2023 Official Jury Prize Winners

The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival announced its official 23rd annual Jury Prize winners at the festival’s Closing Night celebration on February 21 in front of a packed Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center. The culmination of 14 days of world-class cinema, Jury Prize categories include Best Narrative Feature, Best Documentary Feature, Human Rights Prize, Building Bridges Prize, Best Short Film, and Emerging Filmmaker Prize, honoring the festival’s commitment to social justice, community, and diversity.

Winners in the Narrative, Documentary, and Shorts categories were selected based on total artistry, direction, script, cinematography, performances, and overall storytelling. The Building Bridges category honors the film that most exemplifies AJFF’s mission, informed by founder and partner American Jewish Committee, to foster understanding among diverse religious, ethnic, and cultural groups. The Human Rights prize goes to the film that best captures the perseverance and strength of those whose sense of justice guides them in the face of bigotry, inequality, and persecution. The Emerging Filmmaker prize is awarded to a rising creative talent, whose film shows exceptional skill and artistry.

The winners in each category were chosen by a reputable jury consisting of predominant film and art gurus and local, up-and-coming student filmmakers.

Best Narrative Feature

Jake Paltrow's June Zero

A historical drama about the last days of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, uniquely told through the intertwined stories of three peripheral characters: a Libyan immigrant boy, a prison guard, and a Holocaust survivor.

Jury Statement by Bruce Goldstein: With a superb feeling for a very specific time and place, Israel in the early 1960s, June Zero delivers in every department, from the acting of its four principles to its unpredictable direction and story to the cinematography and production design. We can think of few other films as insightful and persuasive about the importance of remembering the past. This is not just another film about Adolf Eichmann.

Jake Paltrow's Acceptance Remarks: Hello, it's Jake Paltrow here in New York. I've just received this wonderful news that the film was singled out with this honor, and I can't tell you how pleased I am by it and how much it means to everybody who worked on the film. You don't make these things hoping you're going to win awards or anything, but you do hope that they are going to connect and that they're going to connect in a theater and that is, of course, what a festival like this is all about. It's deeply appreciated. Thank you so much.

Best Documentary Feature

Ran Tal’s 1341 Frames of Love and War

DocAviv Film Festival Best Israeli Film nominee surrounding Israel’s most celebrated war photographer as he looks back over decades of conflict and countless iconic snapshots, in a journey of self-doubt and questioning.

Jury Statement by Steven Pressman: Director Ran Tal's uncompromising film uses the images of photojournalist Micha Bar-Am to tell both the unflinching story of the state of Israel, and the unvarnished reality of Bar-Am's personal life. Ultimately, 1341 Frames of Love and War is a moving personal testament, and a sweeping historical document, allowing us to see Israel's story through the lens of an extraordinary artist.

Ran Tal's Acceptance Remarks: Hi, good evening. Thank you so much for giving me this wonderful award. My name is Ran Tal and I'm the director of 1341 Frames of Love and War. It was a great email and one of the best I received in the last few weeks. It's a difficult time right now in Israel, the Netanyahu government trying to change totally what we know, what we call now as Israel. We own the street, fighting, we try to do what we can do. It's a really dramatic time in the history of the state of Israel that, as we all know, have many of historical frightening moment. Thanks again. It's a great time for celebrate, but it's also time of resistance.

Best Short Film

Hani Dombe & Tom Kouris’s Fledge

In this highly creative, exquisite folkloristic stop-motion fantasy, a Russian immigrant teen in Israel is torn between her desire for acceptance versus adhering to her identity.

Jury Statement by Felicia Feaster: Part of surviving in a new land involves a need to adapt. The profound and rich stop-motion animation film, Fledge, is about a Russian teenager and her grandmother trying to find grounding in a desolate new landscape in Israel. This gorgeously-crafted film meditates on how to keep the traditions of the old world alive in the new world and draws fascinating parallels between humankind and nature.

Hani Dombe and Tom Kouris's Acceptance Remarks: Hi. I'm Tom Kouris and I'm Hani Dombe. We are the creators of the short film Fledge. We'd like to say hello from here in Tel Aviv, where our studio is, and send our gratitude to the Atlanta Film Festival for choosing our film. We wish we could be there with you. Bye-bye.

Emerging Filmmaker Prize

Ady Walter for SHTTL

A spellbinding drama filmed in one virtuoso long shot, a Yiddish-speaking village on the precipice of disaster wrestles with simmering tensions between tradition and modernity.

Jury Statement by Dori Berinstein: SHTTL is an authentic, heartwarming, cinematic masterpiece from a very exciting new voice. Set in a Yiddish speaking shtetl, tensions build between the Orthodox and the more modern Jewish villagers as the tsunami of Nazi hate and devastation looms. Shot in one epic long shot, Ady Walter's dazzling use of color to distinguish past and present has us eagerly waiting his next film.

Ady Walter's Acceptance Remarks: I'm very, very proud to get this Emerging Filmmaker award. Thank you very much for this. Of course I'm thinking about all the crew and my team, which is currently stuck still in Ukraine for some of them and some of them in the Army as well now. It's a complicated time. I hope this award will also like probably make them happy. This is my first filmmaker award. So thank you Atlanta for this. You will be always in my heart for that. Merci beaucoup.

Building Bridges Prize

Orit Fouks Rotem’s Cinema Sabaya

Israel's submission for the Best International Film Oscar surrounding a group of Arab and Jewish women take part in a young female filmmaker’s workshop, forcing them to challenge their respective beliefs.

Jury Statement by Julie Ann Crommett: Cinema Sabaya is a resonant, multi-layered portrayal of women whose paths cross in a powerful and meaningful way. The bridges built transcend the single room setting and ask us to question our own biases and inspires us to be more vulnerable to those we view as different.

Orit Fouks Rotem’s Acceptance Remarks: Hi, I'm Orit Fouks Rotem, the director of Cinema Sabaya. I'm here in Tel Aviv. I wish I could be there with you, but I would like to thank you - the Jury for choosing us and I'm sending you warm hugs and many thanks.

Human Rights Prize

Micah Smith’s Exodus 91

A docudrama blending reenactments and historical footage in which an Israeli diplomat navigates the treacherous world of bureaucracy and politics while negotiating the escape of Ethiopian Jews from famine and civil war.

Jury Statement by Deidre McDonald: Exodus 91 skillfully weaves archival footage and actual dramatization to tell a story that so many people do not know about. Operation Solomon airlifted 15,000 Ethiopian Jews. This gives the backstory of that 48 hour mission. Although Israel has made great strides, there's still a lot of work to be done.

Micah Smith's Acceptance Remarks: Hi, this is Micah Smith, director of Exodus 91, reaching out to you from Israel right now. And I wanted to thank the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival for the Jury Award for Best Human Rights Film. It was an incredible, incredible honor to be able to screen our film at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, and now to be given this award is really unbelievable. Thank you so much for everything, for supporting Jewish artists around the world, creating important films, so that together, as a community, we can make the world and the Jewish people better.