The biggest ever UK Jewish Film Festival ended this week with organisers promising an expanded event next year.

Documentaries, short films and TV shows from more than a dozen countries made up the 76 screenings at 14 venues over three weeks.

Knowing that the programmers of the UK Jewish Film Festival have done most of the hard work before you, choosing films to see is more a matter of determination to be out and about nearly every night of the week — there are gems available throughout the festival.

'It's like an emotional roller-coaster. You're going to be scared, you're going to laugh and sometimes it's going to be dramatic," enthuses Israeli film director Navot Papushado, talking about the experience of watching a horror film.

Judy Ironside spends so of her much time in darkened rooms watching films, that she likes to be outside whenever she can, which is why we are sitting in a blustery Clerkenwell courtyard on what is quite a chilly October afternoon.

Ironside, the founder and executive director of the UK Jewish Film Festival, is enjoying the breeze.

Drag queens, a vodka baron, fake nuns and Israel's David Brent are just some of the colourful characters coming to London screens for the 15th UK Jewish Film Festival in November.

The festival will not tour to the regions as it has done in previous years, but instead plans to host regional screenings across the country at the same time as the 2012 UKJFF, making it a national festival.

A legendary Jewish Hollywood publicist was shot and killed in Beverly Hills on her way home from the premiere of the new Christina Aguilera film.

Ronni Chasen, 64, who represented stars including Natalie Wood and Morgan Freeman, was found dead in her car after being shot several times in the chest.

She was driving down Sunset Boulevard at the time, and police found the car crashed into a lamppost.

Hours earlier she had been mingling with celebrities at the opening night of the Cher film Burlesque.

Born in New York, she founded the Chasen & Company publicity firm.

In the "Big inning" there was God, a few Yeshiva students and an ex-prisoner. The Yankles is a comedy about a group of Yeshiva students who have a calling from God to start a baseball team, aptly named, The Yankles.

It is a true comedic sight as an army of Yeshiva student baseball players, dressed in their uniform black and white suits, march on to the baseball pitch, with Tzizit hanging freely and Payot tumbling from their baseball helmets.

It was earlier this year, on his own wedding day, that film director Sam Leifer came up with an idea for his next project. In keeping with tradition, straight after the ceremony he and his new wife went to the yichud room for their first secluded moment together as man and wife.

“After 10 years together, it seemed slightly unnatural to be in that situation,” says Leifer. “It was almost a question of, what do we talk about?”

Joan Rivers stands on-stage in a concert hall in the wilds of Wisconsin, regaling a packed audience with her trademark brand of edgy humour. Suddenly a man complains in a loud voice about a gag she has made on the subject of deafness. He announces he is walking out. Rivers, visibly shaken, subjects him to a volley of invective as he leaves the auditorium.

Al Murray is telling a Jewish joke. And Davina McCall and Brian Ferry are joining in. And, oh, look, there's actor Miranda Hart. And Boy George.

And writer Sanjeev Bhaskar (whose shrug goes right up past his ears). And that burlesque dancer, the fabulously named Immodesty Blaize. And comedians Shazia Mirza and Phil Cornwell. And tv presenter Jamie Theakston. And isn't that Graham Norton?