Looking at Jewish life through the lens of cinema is always meaningful, but it has become especially so during the past year, as Israelis have experienced war, and Jews around the world have faced growing antisemitism, so this year’s Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival (JFF) is especially welcome.
The 26th edition of the festival, a cherished Hanukkah tradition in the capital, will take place December 28-January 2 at the Jerusalem Cinematheque. Programmed by festival director Daniella Tourgeman, it will present dozens of movies, including feature films, documentaries, shorts, and animated films from Israel and around the world, that examine the diversity of Jewish life and history.
There will be competitions in several categories, and among the prizes at the festival will be the Schoumann Award for Jewish Cinema, donated by Helene Schoumann, and a new award, the Prize for Representation of the Holocaust, courtesy of the Austrian Cultural Forum.
There will be candle-lighting and other festive touches, such as an exhibition titled Franz Kafka: A Man of His and Our Time, based on the book of the same name and in honor of the centenary of Kafka’s death.
Among the high-profile films that will be premiering at the festival (some of which will open later around Israel), will be the opening-night movie, The Brutalist, starring Adrien Brody, who won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance as a Holocaust survivor in The Pianist, as visionary Hungarian-Jewish architect László Tóth, who survives World War II and emigrates to the US. The movie, which is generating major Oscar buzz, won the Best Director award for Brady Corbet at the Venice Film Festival.
Other high-profile films will include the much-anticipated drama, September 5 by Tim Fehlbaum, which looks at the terrorist massacre of the Israeli team at the 1972 Munich Olympics through the eyes of an American network television sports-reporting team that had to step up and cover the attack.
A REAL PAIN is a new movie by Jesse Eisenberg, which he wrote and directed and in which he stars as a young man who goes on a roots trip to Poland with his cousin (Kieran Culkin). The trip is life-changing for both young men as they come to terms with their own issues and gain a deeper understanding of how the Holocaust has haunted their lives. This movie is expected to be nominated for several Oscars, and it is a rare Jewish-themed movie to have mainstream success in the US this year.
Among the festival’s special events will be the premiere screening of Marathon Mom, a documentary by Rebecca Shore and Oren Rosenfeld about the ultra-Orthodox mother of five and competitive marathon runner Beatie Deutsch, nicknamed Speedy Beatie, as she tries to qualify for the Olympics. Following the screening, there will be a conversation with Beatie Deutsch, along with the film’s directors, and its co-producer, Azrieli Board director and Sports for Social Impact founder Danny Hakim.
An episode of Kugel, the new Shtisel prequel starring Sasson Gabay and Hadas Yaron, will be screened in the presence of these two actors.
Peter Miller’s documentary, Marcella, a portrait of Marcella Hazan, the author who taught millions of Americans to cook high-quality Italian cuisine, will be screened in the presence of journalist Ronit Vered and cookbook author Adeena Sussman, who will lead a discussion about food and national identity.
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF fans will want to see Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen by Daniel Raim, which will be followed by a lecture and a concert of songs from the film’s score.
Centered: Joe Lieberman by Jonathan Gruber is a look at the US senator who nearly became America’s first Jewish vice president. The movie will be introduced by its executive producer, Rob Schwartz, who was Lieberman’s chief of staff.
Aspects of the Holocaust will be explored in different ways in a number of films, both documentaries and dramas. In addition to The Brutalist, the drama, Führer and Seducer by Joachim A. Lang combines a drama about Joseph Goebbels, exploring exactly how he worked with Hitler to create the propaganda that won support for the Nazi regime, with recollections of Holocaust survivors.
Comedian Jerry Lewis got very serious when he made the movie The Day the Clown Cried in 1972, a drama about a circus clown – whom he played – forced by the Nazis to lead Jewish children to their deaths. The movie, which was considered to be a disaster, was never released. A documentary about the movie, From Darkness to Light by Eric Friedler and Michael Lurie, uncovers the story of the infamous film, which few have ever seen.
THE NEW documentary Riefenstahl by Andres Veiel looks into the life of the genius documentary filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, who served Hitler so well, and examines her claims that she did not know about the Holocaust.
The Books He Didn’t Burn by Claus Bredenbrock and Jascha Hannover is a documentary on an unusual topic: the books that Hitler chose for his personal library.
The Future Awaits by Nils Tavernier, the son of acclaimed director Bertrand Tavernier, is a drama about a teen girl hiding from the Nazis with her family in World War II Paris and how she uses her imagination to bring hope to her loved ones.
Competition candidates
In the International Competition, the movie, Unspoken by Jeremy Borison tells the story of a gay teenager growing up Orthodox who learns his grandfather may also have been homosexual.
Nathan Silver’s dramedy, Between the Temples, stars Jason Schwartzman as a depressed young cantor and the great Carol Kane (some will remember her from Taxi and Hester Street) as his former music teacher who comes back into his life, deciding at the age of 70 that she wants a bat mitzvah.
THE DOCUMENTARY category is very strong, and several of these films deal with the shifting realities for Jews around the world today. Alex Osmolovsky’s The Community explores the complex lives of Ukraine’s Jewish community in the shadow of the Russian invasion.
Naftaly Gliksberg’s A Jew in America – Torn Identity is a two-part series, one part of which will be shown, that looks into the cultural tensions that define American-Jewish identity today.
Song of Ascent by Shlomo Weprin is a documentary that looks at how American Jewish singer Matisyahu has confronted anti-Israel backlash following October 7, to become a symbol of Jewish resilience amid a global crisis.
Sandi DuBowski’s Sabbath Queen chronicles Amichai Lau-Lavie life story. The dynastic heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis, including chief rabbis of Israel, he became a drag queen and the rabbi of an unconventional New York synagogue.
THERE WILL be several films and television series devoted to iconic Jews from different eras in the Jewish Portraits section.
David Schalko’s Kafka is a television series that presents different aspects of the writer’s life, including his tense relationship with his father, his deep friendship with Max Brod, and his love affairs.
Brad Rothschild’s Rabbi on the Block is a portrait of Tamar Manasseh, a charismatic rabbi and community activist from Chicago who wants to bring African Americans and Jews closer together.
Jeff Zimbalist’s How to Come Alive is a look at the literary great and provocateur Norman Mailer, who was politically incorrect before the term existed.
Elise Badouin’s Claude Lelouch: La vie en mieux tells the story of the acclaimed, versatile French-Jewish director who, throughout nearly 70 years, has made movies such as A Man and a Woman that celebrate life.
Among the classics that will be screened are Hugh Hudson’s Chariots of Fire, about two British athletes, one Christian and one Jewish, training for the 1924 Olympics – and Michal Waszynski’s 1937 Polish film, The Dybbuk, a haunting Yiddish- and Hebrew-language adaptation of S. Ansky’s retelling of the Jewish myth about a spirit that takes possession of a bride, that is considered a milestone in both Yiddish cinema and German Expression.
To see the full program go to the festival website at jer-cin.org.il/en/JJFF2024_Eng