There are fewer movies about the Sephardim than ones about Ashkenazim, and many of those that do exist aren’t available for streaming. Here’s a partial list of some you can stream at home.
Daniel Deronda: Series adapted from George Elliot’s eponymous novel. Hulu.
Every Time We Say Goodbye: American solider convalescing in Mandatory Palestine falls in love with Sephardic woman, much to the dismay of her family. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu.
The Garden of the Finzi Continis: Oscar-winning film about how a wealthy Italian family fails to realize how vulnerable they are to fascist and Nazi anti-Semitic policies.
The Governess: Sephardic woman from London disguises herself as a Protestant to flee an arranged marriage and serve as a governess for Scottish family. Amazon, Vudu.
The Heritage: An Eternity of Love: An Israeli man seeks to regain his ancestor’s house in Spain and discovers its history. He falls in love with a Spanish Gentile woman like one of his female ancestors had done with a Christian man during the Inquisition.
Magic Men: An elderly Israeli man returns to Greece with his son to find the man who saved him during the Holocaust.
The Midnight Orchestra: Son of a famous Moroccan Jewish musician returns there to bury his father and meets the musicians he once played with. Hoopla
The Optimists: Documentary about the rescue of Bulgarian Jews during the Holocaust. Amazon.
The Rabbi’s Cat: A whimsical animated film set in Algeria about a rabbi’s speaking cat who converts to Judaism. It shifts from religious debates, Jewish texts brought by a Russian Jew, and a quest to liberate a community of black Jews. Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube.
Rescue in Albania: How Albanians saved the majority of Jews in their country during the Holocaust.
Sallah: The classic Israeli comedy about how North African olim were “absorbed” into Israeli society and how they learned to outwit the bureaucracy.
Sefarad: The Jewish community of Oporto funded this docudrama about the exile of Jews from Portugal and the campaign to persuade crypto-Jews to identify themselves and affiliate with the Askenazi community that had established itself in the country by the 1920s. Amazon.
Song of the Sephardi–David Raphael: Sephardic music.
Sons of Liberty. A short biopic from 1939 about the Sephardic financier Haym Solomon who helped fund the Revolutionary War.
Stars: A German soldier falls in love with a Bulgarian Jewish girl he meets while transporting her to a concentration camp.
A Summer in La Goulette: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim girls in Tunisia decide to lose their virginity over the summer, but the Six Day War strains their relationships. Kanopy.
Triumph of the Sprit: A Jewish boxer from Salonika fights to entertain the SS and survive in Auschwitz. Amazon, iTunes, Vudu.
Turn Left at the End of the World: Olim from India and Morocco cling to their British and French traditions in a development town.
The Wedding Song: A Muslim woman and Sephardic Jewish woman who are friends prepare for their marriages amidst the backdrop of the Nazi occupation of Tunisia. Amazon.
Republished from San Diego Jewish World