6 Jewish short films to watch this June on ChaiFlicks
A new online film festival from ChaiFlicks and Reboot Studios highlights a curated selection of short films showcasing bold, innovative Jewish storytelling. Use REBOOT at checkout.
Jewish stories are often discussed in terms of history, heritage and survival. But they are also stories of humor, rebellion, reinvention, music, faith, family and identity. And as attention spans are getting increasingly shorter, some of the most innovative and bold Jewish storytelling is now told in short form.
That is the idea behind the Reboot Presents Short Film Festival, part of a new partnership between Reboot Studios and Jewish streaming platform ChaiFlicks, which will feature a curated selection of shorts set to premiere exclusively on the channel throughout the month of June.
Ultimately, the goal of this project is to create a more visible home for Jewish short-form work and help audiences find films that might otherwise remain scattered across festivals, Vimeo links and limited runs. From an Israeli coming-of-age story starring The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem actress Swell Ariel Or to films exploring identity, migration, memory, music and resistance, the festival offers a concentrated look at the range of Jewish storytelling happening in short form. It also points toward the larger ambition of the ChaiFlicks and Reboot Studios partnership: to make these films easier to find, easier to watch and part of a bigger conversation about where Jewish storytelling can go next.
Arava: Identity, belonging and selfhood
Opening the festival for Pride Month, Arava offers an intimate portrait of identity, belonging and selfhood. The film brings specificity and emotional honesty to a story about what it means to be seen, and what it means to live fully inside one’s own experience.
Starring Swell Ariel Or (The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem), Arava follows two runaway teenage girls who decide to hitchhike through small-town Israel to a Northern Jewish sanctum in pursuit of spiritual redemption. Along the way, they’re confronted with the complexities of their relationship. In contrast to many big Israeli productions, this short piece takes the audience on a journey through Israel’s seldom traveled roads to beautiful, enchanting effect.
‘Anne’ and ‘The Anne Frank Gift Shop’: Memory, reimagined
Anne and The Anne Frank Gift Shop embody two radically different approaches to Holocaust memory and the enduring challenge of how that story is told to new generations. One is intimate and reflective. The other is darkly comic, sharp-edged and deliberately uncomfortable.
Together, these films ask what it means to preserve memory without freezing it in place. They remind us that remembrance is not only about looking backward. It is also about finding the language, form and courage to make history matter now.
We’ve Been Here Before: Punk resistance against hate
We’ve Been Here Before brings a different kind of urgency, connecting punk, resistance and the ongoing fight against white nationalism. The film looks at how culture can become a form of opposition, and how music, anger and solidarity can push back against movements built on fear and exclusion.
Days Between Rest: A Ugandan Jewish story in song
Days Between Rest expands the frame geographically and musically, centering Ugandan Jewish experience through the story of singer Rachel Namudosi. The film is a reminder that Jewish life is global, textured and still too often underrepresented on screen.
By foregrounding music, community and faith, Days Between Rest opens a window into a Jewish world many viewers may not know, while also connecting to themes that feel deeply familiar: tradition, resilience and the search for belonging.
Lion of Zion: From the boxing ring to the rabbinate
The festival closes the month with Lion of Zion, the story of Yuri Foreman, the only Israeli to become a world champion boxer. After losing his title, Foreman began a spiritual journey that eventually led him to become an ordained rabbi.
His story moves between the physical and the spiritual, the public and the private, the discipline of the ring and the discipline of faith. It is a film about perseverance, masculinity, reinvention and the unexpected places a life can lead.
A New Path for Jewish storytelling
These may be short films, but they are not small stories.
At a moment when audiences are looking for Jewish stories with greater range, specificity and imagination, short films offer a powerful way to discover new voices and revisit familiar themes from unexpected angles.
Most short films will not become the next blockbuster or hit series. But careers, movements and new ways of telling stories all start somewhere. Sometimes they begin because someone is willing to take a chance before the evidence is obvious. And sometimes they begin because an audience finds a story they did not know they were looking for, then decides to keep following where that storyteller goes next.
ChaiFlicks is the leading streaming platform for Jewish and Israeli entertainment, bringing films, television series and documentaries from around the world to audiences in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Reboot Studios is the award winning content and creative production arm of Reboot, the Jewish arts and culture nonprofit co-founded by Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw’s Righteous Persons Foundation.
At the center of the partnership is a shared belief in the power of short films. For filmmakers, shorts are often where a voice first becomes visible. Before there is a feature deal, a television series or a larger platform, a short film can reveal a fully formed point of view. Sometimes it is a complete work on its own. Sometimes it is the beginning of something larger. Often, it is both.