By John Corrado

The 2024 Toronto Jewish Film Festival runs from May 30th to June 9th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here.

The title of director Amnon Carmi’s indie comedy Yaniv refers to an old Jewish card game originating from Israel, that two teachers in New York see as a way to earn some quick cash. Barry Bernstein (Ben Ducoff) is a high school teacher in the Bronx. The funding for his school production of Little Shop of Horrors has been cut, and he needs to raise ten grand to put on the show.

So he teams up with his colleague Jonah (Eli Boskey), a former gambling addict, to play Yaniv at an underground club in Regal Park, where a group of Orthodox men bet big at nightly games hosted by the club’s MC, Mendy (Adam B. Shapiro). It’s “the blackjack of the Jewish people,” as Barry’s father calls it, and these men take the card game very, very seriously.

As a low-budget, tongue-in-cheek riff on something like Uncut Gems, Yaniv has enough madcap energy to be very enjoyable throughout its brisk eighty minute running time. The film can feel a bit scrappy at times, but it’s got a fun, endearing quality to it. You can tell the filmmakers and actors were having a blast playing around in this world, and the “we made a movie” vibes carry it through.

The screenplay, co-written by friends Carmi and Ducoff (who are both teachers themselves), offers enough exposition on the rules of the game for those of us who aren’t already familiar with how to play Yaniv, while also immersing us in the specificity of New York Jewish culture. The film is topped off with a score by Klezmer musician Alan Douglass that ups the energy and comic intensity as things go awry in Barry and Jonah’s gambling exploits. It’s a good bit of fun to watch.

Yaniv screens on Thursday, June 6th at 7:30 PM at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema in Toronto as the Centrepiece Film of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival. Tickets can be purchased here.