Chronicling contemporary family situations in various Jewish households is the recurring theme in the Jewish-themed films in Silver Docs 2009, on-screen Monday through June 22 at the American Film Institute in Silver Spring.

Nicole Opper's Off and Running is a poignant portrayal of a young adopted African America teenager who is struggling with her black identity after growing up in a warm Jewish lesbian household of Israeli-born Emma and Tova.

Rich with Jewish ceremonies, the film depicts how Avery is torn between finding her birth mother and accepting the richness of her adopted household. Her brother, Rafi, embraces the family situation and "creates what I want to be."

Avery's raw feelings make for a fascinating tale about identity in a mixed racial adoption and the emergence of feelings of abandonment for a young adoptee in her early adulthood. The film screens Tuesday at 4:30 p.m., and on Saturday, June 20, at 7:30 p.m.

Danae Elon's Partly Private, which follows mother vs. father on whether to circumcise their sons, is the most engaging family film in the festival. Debating to cut or not to cut, Elon explores her personal beliefs, partly influenced by her secular upbringing with her writer father, Amos, versus her Algerian Jewish husband's strong bond to tradition. Admitting that her father boycotted religion, she seeks answers from anti-circumcision groups, the baby's doctor and even local priests who live near her parents in Italy.

She conducts an anthropological-like search for practices of this ancient ritual. The most fascinating story is when Elon sidetracks to chronicle the belief that Jesus' discarded foreskin had been displayed in a church in Calcata, Italy. Even after the disappearance of the sacred skin, congregants think the holy "material" is still among them. And to further her exploration, Alon captures Turkish ceremonies where young 6- to 9-year-olds participate in the ancient ritual with great fanfare and demonstrative pain. This film shows on Thursday, June 18, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, June 20, at 1:15 p.m.

Time of Their Lives depicts feisty aging women who still lead rich lives in a facility for elderly people in North London. Two of the three central characters -- peace-activist Hetty Bower at 103, and sex therapist and still-publishing columnist Rose Hacker at 101 -- are Jewish. Showing great interest in politics and concern with curing the world, these women complain how old age stinks, but demonstrate that the mind at any age can still be vibrant. The film screens on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. and again on Saturday, June 20, at 2:15 p.m.

Samantha Buck's 21 Above proceeds like a slow-moving reality television show. Presenting everyday life among sisters and their mother living in Buffalo, N.Y., the movie deals with a deadbeat boyfriend, upcoming pregnancies and the sadness of having a Tay-Sachs infant.

This depiction of a middle-class family drags at times, while portraying the matriarch's protectiveness of her daughters, especially the one pregnant with her third child. The film's sad moments come with the portrayal of infant Maya, whose genetic disease everyone knows will be fatal. The film shows Friday, June 19, at 9 p.m., and again Saturday, June 20, at 6:15 p.m.

Voices from El-Sayed by Oded Adomi Leshem is a fascinating story of a Bedouin village in Israel that houses a genetic pool of a large number of deaf people who have developed a rich life full of signing and coping. The film flows smoothly between the deaf and hearing interviewees, who speak of the joy of living in a deaf world where there is "quiet in the house."

The film also traces a young 2-year-old who has a hearing device implanted and is taught to hear sounds and speak. Yet this family's choice is challenged as other village inhabitants feel "being deaf is fun."

This uplifting film, like Partly Private, is a must-see at the festival. It unspools on Wednesday at 8 p.m. and again on Friday, June 19, at 2:30 p.m.

Unavailable to the press is Israeli Yoav Shamir's Defamation, billed as a provocative and funny portrait of the differences between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, which screens on Tuesday at 6:15 p.m. and Friday, June 19, at 10:30 a.m.

America's great documentary filmmaker, Albert Maysles, is being honored at the Guggenheim Symposium at 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 18. Artists Christo and Jeanne Claude and two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Barbara Kopple will pay tribute to Maysles' outstanding career and Entertainment Weekly film critic Lisa Schwartzman will interview him.

Noted for such documentaries as Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens and Gates, Maysles is in production on Scapegoat on Trial, the story of how the czarist secret police spun anti-Semitic accusations against Mendel Beilis. The film was presented as a work-in-progress at the 2008 Washington Jewish Film Festival.

Tickets can be purchased at www.silverdocs.com.

Aviva Kempner is a Washington, D.C.-based filmmaker.