When Islander Deborah Rosen began her work as founding chair of the Seattle Jewish Film Festival in 1996, her goal was to help the small, second-year festival grow into a large-scale community event.

Two decades later, the festival boasts as the largest Jewish community gathering in the state of Washington, as it has done ever since Rosen began working with the event organizers.

This Sunday, the Seattle Jewish Film Festival will recognize Rosen with its REAL Difference Award at the AMC Pacific Place in Seattle.

Rosen will be honored along with filmmaker Aviva Kempner, who will receive the festival’s REEL Difference Award. The festival bills the awards as honors given to “distinguished artists and community leaders who have dedicated their talents and resources to making a real difference in the world.” The two will be honored during a ceremony prior to a showing of Kempner’s 2015 film “Rosenwald,” about Sears Roebuck co-founder Julius Rosenwald, who built over 5,000 schools in the Jim Crow South for underserved African-American students.

“I’m really honored to be recognized along with Aviva, who is a filmmaker I’ve long admired,” Rosen said. “Her film we’re screening is a very important film about an unsung hero.”

Rosen has been an educator for over 40 years, dedicated to tutoring and youth mentorship. She also sits on numerous boards, including the Seattle Public Library Foundation, College Success Foundation and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) National Board of Governors.

She said the idea for the film festival initially emerged as a program of the American Jewish Committee to engage the community through film. After its foundation in 1995, Rosen expanded her role the following year to help the festival grow, going from showing six films to 24 and extending the number of days by adding an additional two weekends.

“Our goal was big. We wanted it to be the largest Jewish community event in the state of Washington, which it has been since our first large-scale event,” she said.

It’s through the films’ storytelling that Rosen believes makes the film festival a success.

“It’s an opportunity for people to learn and be moved, interact and connect because film has that capacity to move, to inspire, to bring laughter and tears, and to change perspectives,” Rosen said. “Anybody can watch a film at home or on TV, but it’s the shared experience and also the experience of learning, growing and sharing this emotional experience when you have done something together. It’s experiential in a way that it isn’t when doing something alone.”

Four years ago, the festival became a program of the Stroum Jewish Community Center, an organization that Rosen’s husband, Doug, has served as a past president. Rosen said she was grateful to see the festival’s transition from AJC to another organization that she cares about so much.

“I’ve seen the festival grow in quality, quantity of screenings and the programs around the screenings, and I just think it gets better and better every year,” she said. “The growth has been quite remarkable.”

The Seattle Jewish Film Festival runs April 2 through April 10 at AMC Pacific Place, SIFF Cinema Uptown and the SJCC on Mercer Island. Tickets are available at seattlejewishfilmfestival.org.