AMONG NEIGHBORS 
CLOSING GALA. Q&A WITH PRODUCER/DIRECTOR YOAV POTASH, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER ANITA FRIEDMAN, AND INDIVIDUALS FROM THE FILM.
dir. Director: Yoav Potash. Executive Producer: Anita Friedman. Directors of Animation: Marcin Podolec, José Garnelo, USA, Poland, 2024, 103 min

WORLD PREMIERE. CLOSING GALA. Q&A WITH PRODUCER/DIRECTOR YOAV POTASH, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER ANITA FRIEDMAN, AND INDIVIDUALS FROM THE FILM. Combining evocative hand-drawn animation with revelatory interviews and verité footage, "Among Neighbors" examines Jewish-Polish relations through the story of Gniewoszów, a small, rural town where Jews and Polish Catholics lived side by side for centuries. At its core, the film zeroes in on the last living Holocaust survivor from the town, and an aging eyewitness who saw Jews murdered there — not by Nazis, but by her own Polish neighbors. Today, all signs of Jewish life in the small town of Gniewoszów have vanished — even the Jewish tombstones disappeared, having been stolen from the destroyed cemetery. Now, a lifetime after the Holocaust, award-winning American filmmaker Yoav Potash ("Crime After Crime," Sundance Film Festival) unearths the deepest mysteries of this town, revealing both the love and the hatred that local Poles felt for their Jewish neighbors. The town's oldest residents, in the twilight of their days, divulge secrets held their entire lives, and their stories come to life in stunning animated scenes, accented by artful touches of magical realism. Ultimately, their collective, heartfelt account lays bare the manner in which ordinary Polish townsfolk made life and death choices about their Jewish neighbors, with decisions that reflect both the very best and the very worst of human nature. As this history is now questioned and whitewashed in favor of a more "patriotic" and politically popular narrative, "Among Neighbors" shows how true patriotism means embracing the truth, no matter how painful it may be. WINNER - Jewish Film Institute Envision Award ABOUT THE FILMMAKER Yoav Potash is an award-winning writer, director, and producer. He produced and directed the Sundance premiere documentary "Crime After Crime," a New York Times Critics' Pick and winner of 25 honors, including a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award, and six audience awards. The documentary had a national primetime broadcast on the Oprah Winfrey Network, then streamed on Netflix for two years and is now available on Amazon Prime. The film and its engagement campaign helped change domestic violence law in multiple US states, including New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and California. Yoav also directed the San Francisco IndieFest Jury Prize-winning documentary "Food Stamped," which was nationally broadcast on Pivot, Participant Media's cable/satellite network. Yoav is an alumnus of UC Berkeley, where he received the university's top prize in creative writing. With the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Yoav is also producing and directing "Diary from the Ashes," a documentary about the diary of Rywka Lipszyc, an imaginative teenage girl whose handwritten notebook was written in the Łódź ghetto and found in the ruins of Auschwitz.