The second half of the 28th season of the Mandell JCC’s Jewish Film Festival features several outstanding films the weekend of Jan. 20, as well as additional screenings in February.

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The Mandell JCC’s Phyllis Hoffman Hartford Jewish Film Festival enters the second half of its 28th season with the screening of two outstanding films this weekend, Jan. 20 and 21, at the JCC’s Gilman Theater, 335 Bloomfield Avenue in West Hartford.

First up is Seven Blessings, a contemporary family dramedy and Israel’s official entry to the Academy Awards Best Foreign Film competition. The story centers on a boisterous family of Moroccan Jews now settled in Israel. When the extended family gathers over a series of festive meals to celebrate the marriage of an adult daughter, long-buried secrets come to light. The revelations unsettle the bride and threaten the new couple’s equilibrium. Will the bride, Marie, be able to forgive the older generation’s transgressions and lies? Is it just a generational clash, or is the family fabric irreparably ruptured?  Showtime is 7 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 20.

The second offering is Deadly Deception at Sobibor, a sober-minded Holocaust documentary that details the ten-year investigation that revealed in all its shocking specificity the long-suppressed evidence of a top-secret Nazi death camp in a remote forest in Poland where 250,000 Jews were murdered. An international team of archeologists spent 10 years unearthing the evidence that Nazis hoped to erase, in the process revealing that the Sobibor concentration camp was the site of a daring prisoner revolt and a mass escape. Filmmaker Gary Hochman, a resident of North Haven, CT, tells the story in all its drama, aided by archival footage and the eyewitness testimony of Sobibor survivor Philip Bialowitz.  The documentary is narrated by acclaimed actress Tovah Feldshuh.  Deadly Deception at Sobibor screens at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 21.

A REEL TALK discussion will follow this film, with a panel comprising the filmmaker; Tagan Engel, the granddaughter of Sobibor survivors Selma(zl) and Chaim(zl) Engel; and Ernie Heineman, himself a Holocaust survivor and a relative of a Frankfurt teenager murdered at Sobibor. The discussion will be moderated by West Hartford’s own Dr. Avinoam Patt, Maurice Greenberg Professor of Holocaust Studies, New York University.

Mark your February calendar for two more films you will not want to miss. Queen of the Deuce, a documentary about the offbeat and unabashed life of NYC’s colorful Chelly Wilson, will screen at Real Art Ways on Saturday, Feb. 17 at 7  p.m. (tickets will be sold via Real Art Ways).  Return to the Mandell JCC at 1 p.m. on Sunday afternoon Feb. 18 for Irena’s Vow, a dramatic World War II feature that highlights the courage of a young Polish housekeeper who manages to shelter a dozen Jewish workers in the household of the Nazi officer who employs her.

The Film Festival finale will kick off Thursday, Feb. 29, with a matinee encore performance of Remembering Gene Wilder ($7/$10 at the door). The finale series will also include The Devil’s Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes, Perfect Strangers, Vishniac, and The Catskills (all $15/$20 at the door). To learn more about these films, please visit http://hjff.org.

Tickets are available online, by calling the Mandell JCC 860-236-4571, or by stopping at the Membership Services Desk. Tickets will also be sold at the door.

Email questions to Festival Director Jennifer Sharp, at [email protected].

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