The UK Jewish Film Festival is almost completely online this year, with just four screenings taking place at JW3.
Even though some cinemas are open, UK Jewish Film’s CEO Micheal Etherton and his team took the decision to go online because “people needed certainty”. They hope that an online programme will open up the festival to more people. “More than ever before this is a truly nationwide festival,” said Mr Etherton. “Anyone in the UK can watch the films.”
For £35, households can purchase a festival pass, giving access to the entire programme. Films will go live throughout the event — which runs from November 5-19 — and be available for 48 hours.
The programme has a mixture of feature films, documentaries and TV shows, with live online Q&As and panel discussions.
The online opening night gala on November 5 kicks things off with Caroline Link’s German language feature film, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, an adaptation of the children’s novel by Judith Kerr, based on her own experience as a child refugee from Nazi Germany.
The centrepiece gala is the French and Israeli film The End of Love, about an Israeli man who falls in love with a French woman and has to conduct his relationship with her on Skype after his visa runs out. There will be a Q&A session with director Keren Ben Rafael and actress Judith Chemla after the screening. “It’s a very timely movie,” says Mr Etherton.
The closing night gala is Israeli romantic comedy Honeymood, directed by Talya Lavie.
The star of Netflix hit Unorthodox, Shira Haas, plays a teenager with a degenerative disease in Asia, an Israeli film about a mother and daughter.
Another Israeli film, The Art of Waiting, stars Nelly Tagar and Roy Assaf as a couple undergoing IVF.
Shiva Baby, from American film maker Emma Seligman, is about a graduate coing face to face with her sugar daddy — and his wife and baby — at a family shiva.
Among the comedies on offer are Mossad, a 2019 Israeli film by Alon Gur Aryeh about an kidnapped American billionaire and the CIA and Mossad agents trying to save him. With Airplane! writer-director David Zucker as a consultant, the film has been hailed as the best Israeli parody ever made.
The documentary thread of the programme covers diverse subjects taking in basketball, surrogacy, plastic surgery and salads.
Nisman is a six-part TV series about the bombing of the Jewish community centre in Argentina in 1994, and the discovery of the body of Jewish federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman the day before he was due to testify against Argentina’s former president Cristina Kirchner, whom he accused of covering up Iran’s role in the attack.
Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations is filmmaker Andrew Goldberg’s examination of contemporary hatred in the US, the UK, France and Hungary and includes interviews with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.
Children of the Inquisition by Joseph Lovett interviews people who have discovered that their ancestors were hidden Jews in Spain and Portugal.
Breaking Bread is about Jewish and Palestinian chefs taking part in a food festival in Haifa.
Double Income Kids follows Israeli gay couple Motty and Alon as a surrogate mother gives birth to their twins in America. A
Aulcie tells the story of Aulcie Perry, star of Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team, and They Call Me Dr Miami is about a plastic surgeon who is also a Strictly Orthodox Jew.
The second television series featured in the festival is a drama, Muna, about an Arab Israeli photographer who is chosen to represent Israel in a prestigious exhibition in Paris, and becomes the focus for criticism on all sides. Starring Mouna Hawa of Fauda fame, Muna was made by Mira Awad, , a former singer who represented Israel in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest.
The 50th anniversary of the film The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is will be marked with a showing and panel discussion on November 8. Made in 1970 by Vittorio De Sica, the film tells the story of a family in fascist-run Italy in 1939. The 40th anniversary of classic comedy Private Benjamin will also be celebrated.
The festival’s usual roster of awards has been scaled down, but there will still be an audience award, as well as the Dorfman award for best Jewish film, judged by a panel which will include television presenter Gaby Roslin and actor Andy Nyman.
