Dead Europe in Jewish International Film Festival’s 2012 program
With a new director, the Jewish International Film Festival has launched its 2012 program to screen across Sydney and Melbourne. Included in the line up is Australia’s Dead Europe by Tony Krawitz; Roman Polanski – A Film Memoir by Laurent Bouzereau and Yolande Zauberman’s Would You Have Sex with an Arab?
The festival runs from 1 – 18 November at Bondi Junction’s Event Cinemas and from 7 – 25 November at Melbourne’s Classic Cinemas in Elsternwick.
The announcement:
Under the guidance of a new Director, the Jewish International Film Festival is set for the most electrifying season in its 23-year history when it screens in Sydney and Melbourne this November.
Drawing on his extensive exhibition and distribution experience, Festival Director, Eddie Tamir has assembled a brilliant line-up of 34 features and documentaries from 14 countries, which will challenge, inform and entertain audiences from within and beyond the Jewish community.
Said, Tamir, “I’m delighted to build upon the Festival’s proud history by screening films that celebrate the global Jewish experience in all its diversity and rich ethnicity. From drama, to comedy, real-life adventure to key historical events, our Festival has something to cater for all cinematic tastes.”
Incorporating 24 Australian premieres, the 2012 programme will showcase critically acclaimed movies such as The Law in These Parts (Grand Jury Prize Winner at 2012 Sundance Film Festival) and Yossi, (Winner of Best Narrative Feature at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival), alongside mainstream crowd-pleasers, including the romantic comedy Dorfman, starring Elliot Gould, and The Truth: Would I Lie to You? -– the third instalment in the wildly successful franchise on the misadventures of Jewish garment workers in Paris.
Launching the event in both Sydney and Melbourne will be the Israeli 2012 box office hit, The World is Funny, from famed director Shemi Zarhin. Nominated for a staggering 15 Ophir Awards (Israeli Oscars) across all major categories, this multi-layered, ultimately upbeat melodrama, offers a tightly woven collection of short stories told with affection by a filmmaker of great insight.
Documentaries will also feature prominently and the Festival has a fascinating array, from the Israeli/German co-production, Hitler’s Children to the joyous Hava Nagila, which leads the audience on a quest to discover the meaning of this great Jewish standard. Other standouts include It Is No Dream an insightful documentary that tells the story of Theodor Herzl, acknowledged as the father of the modern state of Israel and Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story, which chronicles the life of this enigmatic soldier, and older brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, who was killed leading the 1976 raid on Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport.
Additional Festival highlights include:
Dead Europe (Director: Tony Kravitz)
When Isaac (Ewen Leslie) embarks on journey to his late father’s ancestral home in Greece to return his ashes, he discovers a sickening and insidious secret buried within his family’s past that involves a young Jewish boy, causing Isaac’s world to unravel, as he realises that he can’t escape the ghosts of the past. Based on the book of the same name by acclaimed author Christos Tsiolkas.God’s Neighbours (Director: Meni Yaesh)
Winner of the SACD Prize at 2012 Cannes Critics’ Week, this action drama follows a vigilante squad of young Jewish fundamentalists. Gang leader Avi (Roy Assaf) and his friends, live in a suburb close to Jaffa, where they willfully use fists and baseball bats to enforce their Breslev code on the more relaxed Jews, as well as Arabs who dare disrupt the Sabbath peace. When new girl, Miri (Rotem Ziesman-Cohen), unwittingly comes to blows with the gang, Avi reluctantly falls in love with her, and finds himself torn between his feelings for Miri and dedication to his cause.One Day After Peace (Directors: Erez Laufer, Miri Laufer)
This award-winning documentary captures a mother’s quest for peace. Robi Damelin lost her son to a Palestinian sniper’s bullet while he was manning a military checkpoint in the West Bank. After unsuccessful attempts at launching a dialogue with the sniper and his parents, Robi returns to her birthplace, South Africa, to see how, after decades of Apartheid, a nation torn apart by violence and misery found a way to forgive and begin to heal.Roman Polanski – A Film Memoir (Director: Laurent Bouzereau)
Filmmaker Laurent Bouzereau chronicles the notorious existence of cinematic auteur, Roman Polanski; a life that plays out far more unrealistically than fiction. This thorough documentary hits all the monumental moments that have made Polanski both ‘The Man and the Myth’.Sharqiya (Director: Ami Livne)
Neither family nor work colleagues appreciate Kamel Nadjer (Ednan Abu Wadi) – the young Bedouin security guard at the Be’er Sheba central bus station. So when the desert shack that he shares with his relatives faces demolition, Kamel decides to take action, by first staging a bombing in the bus station, then preventing it. Reinvented as a hero, he will save his village and win the admiration he so desires.The Flat (Director: Arnon Goldfinger)
Upon the death of his grandmother, filmmaker Arnon Goldfinger undertakes a treasure hunt in the Tel Aviv flat she shared with his grandfather following their flight from Germany in the 1930s. Uncovering years of correspondence with an aristocratic German family who are so high up in the Nazi regime it seems almost impossible, he embarks upon an odyssey to reveal the truth about his family’s history.The One that Got Away (Director: Lindsay Pollock)
15 year-old Thomas Beck escaped a Nazi prison in 1944, facing countless life and death situations with only luck, wit and charisma as his weapons. Not one to wallow in the past, he nonetheless bitterly regretted leaving fellow-internee, Edith Grieman, with whom he had fallen in love. Sixty years later, the ever-youthful Thomas learns that Edith not only survived, but has been living only streets away from him in Melbourne, Australia. The two take up correspondence, but after so long apart and incredibly divergent stories, will they change one another’s lives again? UK-based Director, Lindsay Pollock, will attend Festival screenings.Would You Have Sex With an Arab? (Director: Yolande Zauberman)
A nocturnal journey through the bars of Tel Aviv and the streets of Jerusalem asks one of two questions of the people the filmmakers meet: “Would you have sex with an Arab?” or “Would you have sex with an Israeli Jew?” Equal parts funny, shocking, enlightening and mesmerising, Would you have Sex with an Arab? could be considered a visual ‘Gallup Poll’ of the everyday citizenry of Israel. Their responses are frank, their hearts open and their similarities stark.Jewish International Film Festival will screen as follows:
SYDNEY: 1 – 18 November – Event Cinemas, Bondi Junction
MELBOURNE: 7 – 25 November – Classic Cinemas, ElsternwickVisit the official Festival website at: jiff.com.au
Source: Jewish International Film Festival press release
