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Throughout their professional careers, Neil and Lee Selden have routinely helped individuals from varying backgrounds heal each other's emotional wounds. In "Final Gifts," the first feature film they produced together, the storyline is no different.

One of 39 films making either their New Jersey or area premieres at next month's 14th annual New Jersey International Film Festival, "Final Gifts" depicts an after-death encounter between a peasant guerrilla leader in the Salvadoran civil war against the United States-funded Salvadoran army, and a Jewish doctor who served in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis.

The women, based on real-life characters, are able to rediscover themselves by sharing memories of loved ones who they were unable to save, akin to how young drug abusers overcame personal troubles through dialogue at a counseling group the Seldens used to run in New York City.

"We saw again and again this overwhelming power of human beings helping each other heal simply through sharing their joys and sorrows," Neil said. "It seemed like a natural thing for us to bring two strangers together from totally different cultures [in a film]."

From June 5-21, the Rutgers Film Co-op/New Jersey Media Arts Center will showcase the finalists among a pool of more than 320 films from around the world narrowed down by a panel of judges that included journalists, students, and academics.

The judges selected winners for over $10,000 in prizes, to be announced before the screenings on the festival's final day. This year's entries include a number of films that either deal with Jewish issues or were produced by Jewish filmmakers.

"We want to make sure that we provide films for all of our constituencies, and since a community like Highland Park is one of them, [having Jewish-related films at the festival] was a no-brainer," Albert Nigrin, executive director of Rutgers Film Co-op/NJMAC, said.

Neil Selden said he hopes that "Final Gifts" refreshes Jews and non-Jews alike about the historical details of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

"For me, the story of the Warsaw Ghetto touches a sense that each of us, as ordinary people, has the power to resist and overcome," he said.

The Salvadoran peasant in "Final Gifts" became a guerrilla leader after her village was massacred by the Salvadoran army, as her daughter and husband fought alongside her before dying in battle. The Jewish pediatrician worked with sick and starving children in the Warsaw Ghetto hospital and smuggled weapons for the eventual Jewish uprising. In the 99-minute film, on display at the festival on June 14, the characters wrestle with their concepts of themselves, each other, and God.

"Hopefully you will come away with the question of 'Where was God?' [during episodes like the Holocaust], but the answers are very complex and subterranean," Neil said. "I hope it will invite people to grapple with the question themselves."

Neil is a social worker by trade, while Lee is an interfaith chaplain at the Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick. The Highland Park couple is now in their 70s and will celebrate their 49th anniversary in July.

"We learned a lot about our relationship and how to work together [while making the film]," Neil said. "We realized that the skills you need for a lifetime passionate friendship are the same skills you need working together on a piece of art."

Lee sees a striking parallel in the emotional processes of the characters in "Final Gifts" and the individuals she works with as an interfaith chaplain.

"Everybody wants to tell you a story, because everyone has a story. The problem is that we rarely see the essence of what they have to say," Lee said. "I would like people to know [through the film] that through intimate relating, people can heal each other."

Director Beth Toni Kruvant's "Heart of Stone," which will be screened June 7, documents the stunning turnaround at Weequahic High School in Newark. Known as one of the top schools in the country during the 1960s, Weequahic High was a scarred battleground for gangs by the time Principal Ron Stone took over in 2001.

Kruvant's father graduated from Weequahic High, inspiring her to explore how Stone helped revitalize the school.

"I was looking into my roots and rediscovering what it was all about," Kruvant said. "I had just came back from the Ukraine, where my grandfather was from, and said to myself 'Why not find out where my father grew up.'"

The 84-minute film can be a valuable resource at educational venues, Kruvant said, helping students identify with the struggles of gang members in order to eventually extricate themselves from the ghetto, and showing gang members how to solve conflicts with words rather than guns.

But on a broader level, Kruvant hopes the film can relate to Jews and all other ethnic groups who have left inner-city life for the more tranquil suburbs. The high crime rate in Newark drove most Jews out of town by 1970, as Weequahic High is now 90 percent black and 10 percent Hispanic, Kruvant explained.

In one scene during "Heart of Stone," the Weequahic High Alumni Association, which is about half-Jewish and half-black, presented $100,000 in college scholarships to the school's current students at an awards ceremony.

"This film has inspired the Jews that have left the inner cities around the country to give back to the students who live in the homes they used to live in," Kruvant said. "Inner cities are the lifeblood of America."

In "Open Air," to be screened June 14, two women start the 12-minute film staring at the body of a young woman who was shot by a sniper. They struggle to maintain normalcy in their lives while trapped in their homes by the unseen sniper, providing insight into the role of women during wartime.

The film takes place during an unnamed conflict in an unnamed country, as director Shira-Lee Shalit aimed to give the plot a universal quality.

"We decided this could apply to Georgia, Bosnia, or the Middle East, so we didn't name the place," Shalit said. "It's just about the devastation of war. Nobody wins."

During the festival, at least three films are screened per day starting at 7 p.m., with a brief intermission in between each one. Tickets are $10 per day for general admission, $9 for students or seniors, and $8 for Rutgers Film Co-op/NJMAC Friends, and can be purchased at the door 30 minutes before the start time. The screenings will take place on Rutgers' College Avenue Campus at Milledoler Hall No. 100, located near the corner of College Ave. and Hamilton St. in New Brunswick.