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KARAOKE Synopsis:
Meir and Tova are a Sephardic upper middle class couple, seemingly resigned to live out the rest of their semi-retirement in the banal comforts of an upscale apartment complex in a Tel Aviv suburb. When Itsik, a sexy bachelor from Miami, moves into the building’s penthouse, their lives are gleefully upended. Energized by their newfound friendship with Itsik, Meir and Tova undergo personal transformations, but will their relationship as a couple be a casualty of expressing their individual desires? When Itsik begins to pull away from Meir and Tova, the couple’s obsession with the bachelor grows into a full-blown identity crisis. What follows is an entertaining foray into masculinity, the institution of marriage, social status, narcissism and conformity as they relate to a “new Israeli” class identity. Taking inspiration from his own family, director Moshe Rosenthal has created a special film that focuses on a major population in modern Israel—the Sephardic middle class—that is underrepresented in cinema. With its title playing on the duality of the kitschy and the operatic that coincide within the social act of amateur singing, Karaoke is an optimistic portrait of midlife self-discovery, laced with both poignant wisdom and barbed humor.
The Jewish Film Institute champions bold films and filmmakers that expand and evolve the Jewish story for audiences everywhere. As the presenter of the annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), the world’s first and most revered event for independent Jewish storytelling, JFI celebrates the spirit of film, inquiry, independence, collaboration, community, and inclusion to turn conversation into action, reframe understanding of Jewish cultures and identities, and nurture networks of filmmakers and artists. The Institute’s filmmaker services include the competitive, year-long Filmmaker Residency and the JFI Completion Grants, which provide finishing funds to jury-selected projects. Free, online programming includes a popular series of Monthly Online Shorts, the JFI On Demand streaming service, and the JFI Film Archive, a curatorial history of SFJFF. www.jfi.org
The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), presented by the Jewish Film Institute and founded in 1980, is the largest and longest-running festival of its kind and a leader in the curation and presentation of new film and media exploring the complexities of Jewish life around the world. SFJFF is known for its provocative, independent programming that since its inception has helped to launch the careers of emerging filmmakers and highlighted previously untold stories from Jewish communities around the world.
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