Jewish International Film Festival 2013
Jewish International Film Festival 2013
SYDNEY: 30th October – 17th November at Event Cinemas, Bondi Junction
MELBOURNE: 6th - 24th November at Classic Cinemas, Elsternwick
AFTERMATH (Poland)
Directed by Wladyslaw Pasikowsk
Category: Haunted Histories
A drama about two brothers who attempt to break the silence surrounding the 1941 massacre of several hundred Jews, who were burned in a barn by their Polish neighbours.
BETHLEHEM (Israel)
Directed by Yuval Adler
Category: Hamaztav (The Situation)
Israel's entry for the 2014 Academy Awards, Winner of the FEDEORA Award for Best Film (Venice Days, Venice FF 2013), and fresh from its triumph at the Ophir Awards (Israel's Oscars) where it won in six major categories including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor, Bethlehem explores the complex friendship between an Israeli secret service officer and his teenage Palestinian informant. Not to be missed.
BROADWAY MUSICALS: A JEWISH LEGACY (USA)
Directed by Michael Kantor
Category: All the World's A Stage
Relive Broadway's greatest moments in all of their heart-warming glory and celebrate the creative legacy of a community that dreamed of a better life. Featuring archival performances from stars such as Nathan Lane, Fanny Brice, Barbra Streisand and Matthew Broderick.
CANNON FODDER (Israel)
Directed by Eitan Gafny
Category: Living Dead
Using more than 150 litres of fake blood and with a cast of ex-Israel (IDF) special-ops soldiers, Israel's first zombie film shocks with gob-smacking gore. IDF trooper Doron Geva spearheads a mission with a battalion of soldiers but they soon discover that a biological weapons test has gone horribly wrong, forcing them to fight against a horde of ravenous, flesh-eating zombies.
CUPCAKES (Israel)
Directed by Eyton Fox (Yossi and Jagger)
Category: Quality Schmaltz
A feel-good, sugar-coated romantic romp with music by Babydaddy of glam band Scissor Sisters. A group of friends in Tel Aviv struggle with various relationship crises. When one of their group experiences a marriage breakdown, they write a song to raise her spirits, never thinking that their musical effort will become Israel's entry into a Eurovision-esque competition.
HANNAH ARENDT (Germany)
Written & Directed by Margarethe von Trotta
Category: Brilliant Minds
Arendt (Barbara Sukowa) was sent by The New Yorker to cover the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Her resulting article generated a storm of criticism by the intellectual and Jewish communities, who labeled her a cold, heartless and self-hating Jew. Von Trotta's vision of Arendt offers understanding into the formulation of her ideas – in particular, what she termed -the banality of evil – which later culminated in her seminal thesis of the same name.
THE LAB (Israel/France/Belgium)
Directed by Yotam Feldman
Category: Hamaztav (The Situation)
With Michael Moore style documentary filmmaking and utilising unprecedented access to leading Israeli weapons salesmen, The Lab follows some of the industry's heavyweights into a chilling and morally questionable world. Winner of Best Debut Film at this year's Doc Aviv Film Festival.
THE LAST OF THE UNJUST (France/Austria)
Directed by Claude Lanzmann
Category: Brilliant Minds
The latest film from the creator of Shoah, the seminal Holocaust documentary, focuses on a complex and unique man - Benjamin Murmelstein - the Jewish Council president of the Thereseinstadt Ghetto, who was one of the most notorious figures of the era. This searing documentary, which screened in Official Selection at Cannes 2013, draws upon a series of rarely before seen interviews, filmed in 1975 with the elderly Murmelstein.
NO PLACE ON EARTH (USA)
Directed by Janet Tobias
Category: Triumph of the Spirit
In 1942, 38 men, women and children slid into a cold, muddy hole in the ground, seeking refuge as Ukrainian authorities began rounding-up Jewish citizens. Forced to wait out the war within the earth's belly, in conditions beyond human imagination, No Place on Earth brilliantly recreates the families' subterranean ordeal – the vermin, the lack of oxygen, the darkness and the primal fear.
THE PRIME MINISTERS (USA)
Directed by Richard Trank
Category: Hamaztav (The Situation)
This revealing documentary, narrated in part by Christoph Waltz and Michael Douglas, takes us deep into the inner-circle of some of Israel's most revered, and at times, reviled, prime ministers – each one tasked with guiding the nation through turbulent, challenging and inspiring chapters of Israel's history.
ROCK THE CASBAH (Israel/France)
Directed by Yariv Horowitz
Winner of the Art Cinemas Award at Berlinale 2013, Rock the Casbah follows a group of young Israeli soldiers assigned to watch over a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip at the height of the Intifada during the summer of 1989. Despite their instructions, the task proves virtually impossible, as most of their opponents are children. A compelling and unforgettable cinematic experience.
WAKOLDA (Argentina/France/Spain/Norway)
Directed by Lucia Puenzo
Category: Haunted Histories
Nominated for Un Certain Regard at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, this tension-laden drama tells of the imagined experiences of a family in 1960s Argentina who come into close contact with Dr Josef Mengele, the engineer of the Third Reich's experiences to create a master race.
THE ZIG ZAG KID (Netherlands/Belgium)
Directed by Vincent Bal
Category: Coming of Age
Nono Feierberg is desperate to follow in his famous police-inspector father's footsteps. But on the eve of his Bar Mitzvah, what beings as a harmless sleuthing challenge given to him by his father becomes a rollicking, madcap escapade.
Keep visiting the official Festival website for updates: www.jiff.com.au
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