The festival will run from December 13 to 18 at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, will feature over 40 movies from 15 countries, and will explore Jewish life in times of uncertainty, as well as stability.
The 27th Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival, which will run from December 13 to 18 at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, will feature over 40 movies from 15 countries and explore Jewish life in times of uncertainty, as well as stability.
The festival, which coincides with the Hanukkah holiday, offers both serious, thought-provoking films as well as lighter movies, and there will be special events, some of which are free (but which require advance registration), as well as holiday candle lightings.
The festival will open with The Soundman, a Belgian drama by Frank Van Passel about a young, shy technician at a Brussels radio station in 1940 whose unlikely romance with a rising actress unfolds as the Nazi invasion looms. The Schoumann Prize for Jewish Cinema, donated by the family of French journalist Hélène Schoumann, will be awarded in the international competition this year.
‘THE WORLD Will Tremble.’ (credit: Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival)
The films in this competition include Two Pianos by Arnaud Desplechin, about a classical musician returning from exile to confront a long-buried past; Orphan by László Nemes, the director who made Son of Saul, which is set in Budapest in 1957 and which centers on a boy whose life is upended when a stranger arrives claiming to be his father; and The Safe House by Lionel Baier, a family drama that unfolds against the backdrop of the upheavals of the student demonstrations in Paris in May 1968.
Other films that will be shown are The Tasters by Silvio Soldini, a drama inspired by the women who were actually forced to taste Hitler’s food; Summer Beats by Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret, a coming-of-age drama set in a French summer camp; and Fantasy Life, directed by Matthew Shear, a quirky comedy about an unemployed lawyer who starts babysitting for his psychiatrist’s granddaughters and falls for their mother, played by Amanda Peet.
New Israeli films and series
The festival will also present several new Israeli films and television series. Eran Kolirin, best known for The Band’s Visit, has a new film, Some Notes on the Current Situation, which features a set of surreal vignettes about contemporary Israeli life. Lior Geller’s The World Will Tremble dramatizes the escape of two Jewish prisoners from the Chelmno extermination camp.
Emmanuel Finkiel’s Mariana’s Room, based on Aharon Appelfeld’s Blooms of Darkness, tells the story of how a Jewish boy is hidden from the Nazis by a prostitute during the war. Yossi Madmoni’s new drama series, Ambiguity, explores the secret lives of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men and women who no longer believe but cannot leave their community.
Several documentaries delve into Holocaust memory, includingAll I Had Was Nothingness – Shoah by Claude Lanzmann, directed by Guillame Ribot, which examines how the documentary masterpiece was created, using never-before-seen footage. Rafael Lewandowski’s Cywia & Rachela revisits the Warsaw Ghetto uprising through the stories of two women fighters.
Isri Halpern’s Proud Jewish Boy looks at the true story of a young Jew who carried out a political assassination in 1938. Another highlight will be Neshoma by Sandra Beerends, which uses archival footage to paint a portrait of prewar Jewish life in Amsterdam.
The festival always features the latest films about Jewish thinkers and artists. This year they include Hannah Arendt – Facing Tyranny by Jeff Bieber and Chana Gazit, which delves into the sometimes controversial philosopher’s political legacy. Oren Rudavsky’s Elie Wiesel – Soul on Fire looks at the writer’s impact and his groundbreaking way of telling his Holocaust survival story through writing.
Two documentaries focus on cartoonist and author Art Spiegelman: Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse, a look at his life as well as his art by Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin, and The Hell of Auschwitz – Maus by Art Spiegelman, directed by Pauline Horowitz, which spotlights the impact of his two-part graphic novel about his childhood and his parents’ Holocaust experience.
There will be a comics workshop before the screening of Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse, led by an artist and a therapist.
New documentaries look at some of the most beloved Jewish creators of all time, including Billy Joel: And So It Goes by Sarah Lacy and Jessica Levin and Steven Spielberg – The New Hollywood Prodigy, directed by Michael Prazan.
Tickets are on sale at the Jerusalem Cinematheque website at https://jer-cin.org.il/en