While the Miami Jewish Film Festival, this year celebrating its 29th edition, has continued to grow, the number of films it presents as well as the South Florida venues it draws crowds to, this year it’s unveiled a segment entitled “Made in Florida.”
The focus is on movies that are rooted in Miami’s community and crafted by filmmakers who either call Florida home or whose subjects have a place in South Florida.
Leading the slate is the world premiere of Jerrod “Jerry” Levine’s “From Cuba to America,” a Miami-made portrait of entrepreneur George Feldenkreis and his journey from Havana to building the Perry Ellis fashion empire in Miami.
READ MORE: Confronting history: Documentary at Miami Jewish Film Festival explores Henry Ford’s dark legacy
The film began initially as a personal film for the Feldenkreis family, projects Levine had done many times previously for others. “They were nonbroadcast projects I did quietly for different people – influential families.” Oscar, George’s son, knew of one that Levine had done about his best friend’s parents. So a family film about his father was begun.
Levine started interviewing George for what was to be a six-part series. “And while getting all these interviews, I said to George, ‘You know, some of what you are saying here is so incredible, why don’t we turn this into a documentary, a broadcast documentary, so other people can see it.’”
Levine said it took a while for George Feldenkreis, born in 1935 in Havana to Cuban-Ukranian-Jewish parents, to “wrap his mind around it.”
The filmmaker began in 2020 interviewing the entrepreneur and completed the family project in 2022. Levine has spent the last few years working on what is now “From Cuba to America.” “We added other interviews and stories. We essentially took six hours of finished material and turned it into an hour and 20 minutes and it was very challenging.”
What’s emerged is a narrative that captures not only Feldenkreis’s rise in business and the transformation of his company into a family endeavor with his son Oscar and daughter Fanny, but also his high-stakes acquisition and battle to revive the Perry Ellis brand. At the same time, the film chronicles his personal journey and illuminates the broader story of Cuban immigrants building new lives in America.
The film also features an original track by Grammy-winning Emilio Estefan, who has a long-standing friendship with Feldenkreis. One piece of archive video given to Levine for his film by Estefan features a very young pre-Miami Sound Machine playing at Fanny Feldenkreis’s wedding.
“Whoever was the videographer at that wedding decided to turn the camera around photographer. So, we don’t have some random cut. We have the cut that Emilio talks about in the film, remembering the party he was at.” Estefan contributed an original track for the film that Levine says “has never been in a movie before.” “Por Si Acaso No Regreso,” performed by Celia Cruz and written by Anjeanette Chirino and Estefan, closes out the film.
There is also a poignant time caught on film as Levine follows the family traveling to Havana, where George says, “We went to Old Havana to where I used to live and then I decided to go to the second floor.” Levine captures him and his family in front of the apartment, knocking on the door and speaking to the person who lives there now and who lets them in. “I lived here since I was born. Here is my room that I shared with my grandfather and my sister,” he tells his family traveling with him.
And then a party in Havana for George’s birthday. “There was a guy who was a cook for Fidel Castro. The guy can do anything you want. I told him I want wine, I want this, and get me a group of singers. He got me musicians. My Cuban friends from law school were there. We had a great time.”
He didn’t live to see his legacy on film. Levine’s end notes of the film read, “George Gidalio Feldenkreis passed away peacefully on Feb. 20, 2025.” He died in Miami Beach at the age of 89.
“From Cuba to America:” 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 24, Miami Theater Center, 9806 NE 2nd Ave., Miami Shores; Monday, Jan. 26, Temple Menorah, 620 75th St., Miami Beach; Wednesday, Jan. 28, Michael-Ann Russell JCC (sold out).
Marty Lurie, the Major League Baseball broadcaster whose voice is synonymous with San Francisco’s Giants, traces his remarkable journey from Brooklyn and Miami Beach to becoming the voice of sports in the Bay Area, in the documentary “Baseball Mensch: The Marty Lurie Story,” by Randy Field.
“I came from Brooklyn to Miami in the sixth grade,” says Lurie. “I went from a school that looked like a penitentiary to a ranch house school in Miami Beach, and I met all my lifelong friends at that point—Joel Brown, who became the chief judge of Dade County; Ricky Perillo, a major flower importer; Bobby Flam from Jumbo’s Restaurant; Seth Werner, the entrepreneur. We’ve been friends our whole lives.”
After high school, Lurie attended the University of Florida and University of Miami Law School, then co-founded a legal practice in Miami that provided representation to those who couldn’t access legal aid. “We opened a little storefront office; it used to be Henry’s Imperial Steakhouse. The waiting room could hold 200 people, and our office was the kitchen. We would sit under the exhaust fan and talk to people. That’s the way we started the practice,” he recalls.
Marty Lurie, the Major League Baseball broadcaster whose voice is synonymous with San Francisco’s Giants, traces his remarkable journey from Brooklyn and Miami Beach to becoming the voice of sports in the Bay Area, in the documentary “Baseball Mensch: The Marty Lurie Story,” by Randy Field. (Photo courtesy of Miami Jewish Film Festival)
Miami Beach, he emphasizes, was the foundation for his later success. “Without Miami Beach High, without the Gators, without the University of Miami, I never would have been anybody. From Brooklyn, my father had died, and my mother and sisters and I were moved to Miami Beach by my uncle. Life all of a sudden—green grass in North Shore Park, beautiful people—it was so different. My mother became part of Temple Menorah, which was started in Miami Beach, and I was the second bar mitzvah there in 1958. Miami really made me the man I am today.”
While he tells of many highlights of his broadcasting career, one of the pinnacles came in the form of a World Series ring. “The president of the Giants was on the radio with me. After the show, he said, ‘What’s your ring size?’ I told him, and six months later, they called me in and gave me a World Series ring. For me, it meant a lot because it was the first time I got validated. Being a criminal lawyer, you never got validation. No one ever called you up and said, ‘Hey, great job.’”
Beyond the accolades, Lurie’s story is about the connections between his Jewish upbringing, his Miami Beach roots, and his lifelong mission to fight for the underdog. “It talks about the influence of Judaism on me, and what it meant to me, and how it connects to baseball, fighting for the underdog. I’ve always tried to do right, and I’ve mentored people in criminal law. It’s all connected to my Jewish background,” he says.
At 80, Lurie continues broadcasting Giants games and hosting his YouTube channel, “Marty Lurie & Friends, Talking Baseball.” We all followed our passion, and we still do at this age,” he reflects.
7:30 p.m., Monday, Jan. 26, “Baseball Mensch: The Marty Lurie Story,” Miami Beach JCC, 4221 Pine Tree Drive, Miami Beach. East Coast Premiere. Tickets are $16, $15 for seniors 65 and older and students.
In “Sheitel: Beauty in the Hidden,” documentary filmmaker Lynda Mejuck-Suissa explores the centuries-old spiritual practice of Orthodox Jewish women covering their hair as a sign of modesty, privacy, and marital practice.
Mejuck-Suissa’s curiosity begins close to home. Living in Nova Scotia, and dividing her time between Toronto and Halifax, the film balances historical context with contemporary voices from rabbis who explain religious laws to their wives who reflect on their own views of the “sheitel.” An interview with a judge, the first Hasidic woman elected to public office in Canada, and other professional women from Los Angeles to New York highlight the balance of tradition and their personas in the modern world. Among the most poignant moments is following a young bride as she goes for her first wig fitting, marking the Orthodox practice that married women begin covering their hair publicly immediately after marriage. “It’s not just about putting on a wig,” says Mejuck-Suissa. “It’s part of a committed lifestyle.”
Sheitel machers (wig makers) figure prominently in the film from Jerusalem, Montreal, Toronto, Brooklyn, as well as an inside look at Yaffa Wigs in Bal Harbour and Yaffa Tenami’s decades-long dedication to wigmaking and wig fitting.
“I love Bal Harbour because it’s fashionable, but it’s also deeply religious. It really shows how tradition and self-expression aren’t opposites.”
Throughout the film, Mejuck-Suissa challenges assumptions about religious women. “People say, ‘Jewish women are so oppressed,’” she said. “But when you actually talk to these women, they’re not oppressed.”
Mejuck-Suissa grounds the film in history using archival photographs and advertisements that trace how wigs moved from European courts into Jewish communities. Images of Marie Antoinette, alongside photographs of Russian Jewish women in the early 20th century, place contemporary practice with the long lineage of the spiritual practice. “Jewish women always wanted to look as good as possible and as current as possible,” says Mejuck-Suissa. “Style is relative—it depends on where you live and when you live.”
7:30 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 15, “Sheitel: Beauty in the Hidden,” Miami Beach JCC, 4221 Pine Tree Drive, Miami Beach. U.S. Premiere. The premiere event will feature director Lynda Medjuck-Suissa in attendance for an introduction and post-film conversation. Tickets are $16, $15 for seniors 65 and older and students.
Sergio Maza, the director of the documentary “The New Yorker Theater: Talbot Legacy,” discovered the legendary Dan and Toby Talbot, a visionary Jewish couple from the Bronx, almost by way of Argentina.
“My first education in cinema came from a neighbor who programmed independent films on cable TV. Those movies were so important that I decided I didn’t want to be an architect—I wanted to immerse myself in film.” Moving to New York brought Maza into contact with the world the Talbots had helped create, and the story of their pioneering work inspired him to make the documentary.
“For me, this is a very important story, also because they were able to revolutionize film exhibition in the 1960s. And right now, we are in a very complex moment of movies and we need to find different ways to connect the world of different directors to audiences.”
The Miami connection in the film is Nat Chediak, Miami Film Festival co-founder and former executive director, who appears in the film and who championed independent and art house cinema in Miami for decades.
“Before the New Yorker, he [Dan Talbot] wanted to run a bookstore,” recalls Chediak, who says he had a lifelong friendship with Talbot. “I’m glad he chose film instead. He wasn’t after blockbusters—he was passionate about discovering films that broke new ground, that saw reality in a different way. And he inspired me to do the same here in Miami.”
6 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 18, “The New Yorker Theater: Talbot Legacy,” O Cinema South Beach, 1130 Washington Ave., Miami Beach. Florida Premiere. $16, $15 seniors 65 and older and student. Also included will be a screening of Robert Bresson’s “A Man Escaped,” a film which the Talbots championed and distributed. Maza and Chediak will be in attendance to introduce the film and participate in a conversation following the film with former Miami Herald Film Critic Rene Rodriguez.
Also included in the “Made in Florida” programming are “Parting the Waters,” 6 p.m., Jan. 15 at Miami Theater Center, an inspiring portrait of Florida native Michele Kupfer’s journey to the Maccabiah Games and Justin Schein’s acclaimed “Death & Taxes,” 6 p.m., Jan. 21, O Cinema South Beach, featuring Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, David Stockman, and Grover Norquist in a probing examination of wealth, tax policy, and inequality.
WHAT: The 29th edition of the Miami Jewish Film Festival
WHEN: Wednesday, Jan. 14 through Thursday, Jan. 29
WHERE: Bill Cosford Cinema, 5030 Brunson Drive, Coral Gables; Coral Gables Art Cinema, 260 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables; Michael-Ann Russell JCC, 18900 NE 25th Ave., North Miami Beach; Miami Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Ave., Miami Beach JCC, 4221 Pine Tree Drive, O Cinema South Beach, 1130 Washington Ave., Miami Beach; Miami Theater Center, 9806 NE 2nd Ave., Miami Shores; The Hub at Temple Beth Am, 5950 N. Kendall Drive, Pinecrest.
COST: $25- $54 for special events; $16 general admission for all other films, $15 seniors 65 and older and students with ID; $350 for all access.
INFORMATION: 305-503-5182 or miamijewishfilmfestival.org/
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit news partner of WLRN, providing news on theater, dance, visual arts, music and the performing arts.
