For the full festival line-up and to purchase tickets and passes, visit us at: bit.ly/1yOrSZt What does it mean to become a man on the occasion of your bar mitzvah? Why do some kids seemingly have all the material advantages simply due to the circumstances into which they were born? These are some of the questions with which Mica, the 13-year-old protagonist of the documentary Havana Curveball, wrestles as he embarks on a quest to deliver baseball gear to kids in Cuba as part of his bar mitzvah service project and his gratitude to the country that welcomed his grandfather during the Holocaust. Baseballs, bats, shoes and gloves are expensive luxuries difficult to acquire in Cuba due to the island nation's poverty, exacerbated by the US trade embargo. Part travelogue and part coming-of-age story, Havana Curveball, by Mica's parents (Bay Area filmmakers Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider, Return of Sarah's Daughters, SFJFF 1997), is a marvelously crafted tale that provides insights into the bizarre state of relations between the US and Cuba as well as the idealism of youth. Over a period of three years Mica struggles to make good on his promise. He finally gets to play ball with his Cuban contemporaries, visit the house where his grandfather lived as a child and experience the satisfactions and disappointments of playing benefactor to those less fortunate.

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