The Film Society’s inaugural Artist in Residence program brings an international filmmaker to San Francisco for a two-week residency which features programming in each of the Film Society’s core areas—education, exhibition and filmmaker services—including a public screening, master class, visits to Bay Area high school and college classrooms and mentoring of SFFS FilmHouse residents. Visiting artists are selected based on their filmmaking experience, compelling body of work and desire to share their knowledge with emerging filmmakers and film students.

SCREENING: MELTING SIBERIA

Ido Haar’s mother was born in the Soviet Union. She was still in her mother’s womb when her father, a high-ranking officer in the Red Army, abandoned her mother and disappeared. Haar, who bears a close resemblance to his grandfather, decides to locate his lost relative and arrange to have him meet his daughter for the first time. The distance between Siberia and Israel, and father and daughter, is instantly shortened by one telephone call, a dramatic interchange that sets an inevitable course of events in motion. The film traces the painful journey from abandonment to reconciliation.

Peter Stein, executive director of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, will moderate a Q&A with Haar after the screening, followed by a reception with the filmmaker at Viz Cinema Café.

Tickets go on sale to SFFS members February 1 and to the general public February 8.


The Artist-in-Residence program is presented in partnership with the Jacob Burns Film Center and is made possible by a grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Additional support is provided by The Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest Region.




Photographed by Nitzan Ofir, Uri Ackerman, Amitai Arnon. In English, Hebrew and Russian with subtitles. (72 min)