The Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International Film Festival© To Premiere Five Enthralling Comedies, Dramas, and Documentaries from Israel or with Jewish Themes January 25 through February 6, 2026

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Jan. 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International Film Festival© (SASIFF), presented by MorseLife, returns for its fourth season with screenings at three locations: the Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts (Jan. 25-31, 2026), Hooky Entertainment Delray (Feb. 1-5), and the new Glazer Hall in Palm Beach (Feb. 6).

Among the exciting, curated selection of films from all over the world are five cinematic offerings that will be of particular interest to Jewish film fans.

• January 25 – ETHAN BLOOM
• January 26 – DEAD LANGUAGE
• January 27 – THE PIANIST'S CHOICE
• January 28 – FRONTIER
• January 29 – THE TASTERS

"There's something for everyone in our selection of Jewish-themed films, which run the gamut from a Miami-set comedy and a contemporary Israeli thriller to gripping dramas of WWII Jewish resistance," promises Barbara Scharres, SASIFF Artistic Director.

The five films targeted to Jewish movie buffs that will be shown at the Kravis Center's Rinker Playhouse during the upcoming Sun & Stars International Film Festival are:

DEAD LANGUAGE
(Mystery, 2025, North Palm Beach County Premiere. Directed by Oded Binnum and Mihal Brezis. Israel/Czech Republic/Poland, 110-minutes—In English, Czech and Hebrew with English subtitles)
A marriage gone flat hangs in the balance when Aya (Sarah Adler) goes to the Tel Aviv airport to pick up her husband and, on impulse, departs instead with an arriving stranger (Ulrich Thomsen) by impersonating his driver. The filmmakers expand their Oscar nominated short into a tale of mystery and subterfuge that becomes a delicate dance of longing for a version of a relationship that Aya cannot yet articulate. The strange and benign encounter that she orchestrates with the anonymous businessman only heightens her need to follow a fantasy that takes her to snowy Prague to follow a familiar path allegedly in search of her linguist husband and to reimagine who he and she might be together in a different life.
The Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center
Monday, January 26, 4 pm

ETHAN BLOOM
(Coming-of-age Comedy, 2025, North Palm Beach County Premiere. Directed by Herschel Faber. USA, 90-minutes)
The Opening Night Screening of The Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International Film Festival©, presented by MorseLife.
This delightful film paints a revealing portrait of adolescence, humorously exploring the struggles of an awkward teenager navigating the loss of his mother, his search for faith, and the pressures of his father's expectations. Starring Hank Greenspan from the CBS hit comedy The Neighborhood and movie/TV actress Rachelle Lefevre (White House Down, Proven Innocent, Boston Legal, Big Wolf on Campus), ETHAN BLOOM captures the perils of first love, religion, and speculation about the afterlife as the 13-year-old title character attempts to evade his Bar Mitzvah by converting to Catholicism. Meanwhile, his widowed dad (played by Joshua Malina from The West Wing) has engaged curvaceous redheaded Rabbi Dani to administer private instruction in the Torah. Talk about complications. Torn in multiple directions, Ethan communes nightly with his mom and dead dog in the heaven he imagines for them, while struggling by day with his enthusiastic discovery of solo pleasures of the flesh. It all comes together in a spectacularly moving finale when faith, sex, love and family all coalesce in well-deserved harmony.
The Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center
Sunday, January 25, 7:30 pm

FRONTIER
(Frontera)
(WWII Thriller, 2025, North Palm Beach County Premiere. Directed by Judith Colell. Spain/Belgium, 100-minutes—In Catalan, Spanish, French and German with English subtitles)
A small community's psychic wounds from the Spanish Civil War are opened anew when a Pyrenees mountain village is challenged and divided over their proximity to Nazi-occupied France. Based on true events and starring Miki Esparbé and Bruna Cosí, this film is set in Spain in 1943, in a remote border hamlet where in direct defiance of Franco's official rejection of Jewish refugees, customs agent Manuel Grau, has surreptitiously teamed up with a smuggler to aid and hide Jews crossing over the mountain trails. Effectively evoking the period and the peril with escalating tension between neighbor and neighbor and husband and wife, director Colell creates a shadowy rural milieu dangerously ruffled by the unfamiliar need to make life-or-death moral choices.
The Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center
Wednesday, January 28, 4 pm

THE PIANIST'S CHOICE
(La Choix du Pianiste)
(WWII Drama, 2024, North Palm Beach County Premiere. Directed by Jacques Otmezguine. France, 102-minutes—In French and German with English subtitles)
A young pianist's prodigious talent sets a conflicted course in this meticulously crafted drama that unfolds before, during and after WWII. A German brother and sister suffer under the iron-willed control of their wealthy father, who seeks to crush the musical dreams of son Francois (Oscar Lesage), who finds all his passions in life reciprocated in the arms of his Jewish piano teacher Rachel (Pia Lagrange). Fame comes with liabilities when Francois is forced to perform in Germany, striking a deal with the devil in the effort to save the woman he loves, while his sister becomes a Nazi collaborator. Yet another woman emerges to lovingly influence the disgraced virtuoso's future as he attempts to reclaim his reputation after the war.
The Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center
Tuesday, January 27, 4 pm

THE TASTERS
(WW II Drama / 2025, North Palm Beach County Premiere. Directed by Silvio Soldini. Italy/Belgium/Switzerland, 123-minutes—In German with English subtitles)
The year is 1943, and Rosa (Elisa Schlott), a German wife taking refuge in a small town while her husband fights at the Russian front, is forcibly conscripted to serve as one of Hitler's tasters in his Polish forest bunker, the Wolf's Lair. The lavish vegetarian meals prepared for the führer must be tested and tasted to prevent poisoning, and seven local women are forced to serve as the guinea pigs. Fear and paranoia reign, and no one is above suspicion, not the bodyguards, the tasters, or even the gourmet chef himself. For Rosa, an outsider from Berlin, solidarity with the other women is a slippery slope, and solace comes in the form of a dangerous relationship.
The Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center
Thursday, January 29, 4 pm

For more information about SASIFF including a complete list of scheduled screenings or to purchase tickets, please visit www.sasiff.org.

About The Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International Film Festival:
The Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International Film Festival©, presented by MorseLife, aims to bring highly anticipated, critically acclaimed, and thought-provoking films to Palm Beach County. As a world-class film festival, it represents a major contribution to the cultural life of Palm Beach County and returns next month for its fourth season with screenings at the Kravis Center's Rinker Playhouse (Jan. 25-31), Hooky Entertainment Delray (Feb. 1-5), with the closing night screening at glamorous new Glazer Hall in Palm Beach (Feb 6). SASIFF was co-founded by film buffs and cultural philanthropists Donald M. Ephraim and Terri Sriberg. For more information about purchasing tickets or becoming a sponsor, please visit www.sasiff.org, www.facebook.com/DME.SASIFF and www.twitter.com/dmesasiff or www.instagram.com/dme_sasiff, email [email protected], or call 561.220.6735.

About MorseLife: 
MorseLife serves more than 3,600 seniors every day on its campus in West Palm Beach and through its community outreach programs. Founded in 1983, MorseLife is a provider of health care and residential services for seniors in Palm Beach County. A charitable, not-for-profit organization, its programs also include short-term rehabilitation, long-term care, independent and assisted living, memory care assisted living, hospice, home health care, care management, meals-on-wheels, and PACE. Since its beginnings, MorseLife has built a reputation and tradition of caring for seniors with excellence, dignity, and compassion. For more information, visit morselife.org, www.facebook.com/MorseLife, www.twitter.com/MorseLifeHealth, www.instagram.com/morselifehealth or www.linkedin.com/company/morselife-inc-/ or contact [email protected].

Available for Interview:
Barbara Scharres, Artistic Director
The Donald M. Ephraim Sun & Stars International Film Festival
773.875.0304
[email protected] 

Media Contact:
Gary Schweikhart
PR-BS
561.756.4298 
[email protected]

SOURCE MorseLife