UK Jewish Film Festival: Ones to Watch

22 September 2008

Rate this article

Heroes and heroines, artists, love stories, Koran-reading Jews, Kosher-cooking Muslims, resistance fighters, award winning documentaries, soap operas, dramas and world class feature films exploring memories and experiences of the Holocaust, the atrocities of war, relationships across the Jewish/Muslim divide and the solidarity of female friendship.

These are just some of the themes, characters and protagonists that make up the UK Jewish Film Festival�s (UKJFF) fantastically diverse line-up of films and events this year.

This year�s festival includes a huge variety of films (45 titles), including 31 UK premieres and more than 60 screenings across London cinemas. The programme includes Jewish-related feature, documentary and short films made and produced around the world.

FemaleFirst has taken a closer look at the line-up to highlight what you should be looking our for when the UK Jewish Film Festival rolls into London on the 8th November.

Lemon Tree

Part of the opening night gala Lemon Tree is on of the high profile movies of the event and has already had success on the festival circuit.

Palestinian widow Salma (Hiam Abbass) tends her lemon grove on the green line border between Israel and the West Bank, until Defence Minister Navon (Doron Tavory) moves into a smart house on the other side of the fence and the trees are deemed a security risk.

In the ensuing fight to save them, Salma falls for handsome young lawyer Ziad (Ali Suliman) and stirs the compassion of Navon�s conflicted wife Mira (Rona Lipaz-Michael).

Fugitive Pieces

Based on the novel by Canadian writer Anne Michaels Fugitive Pieces is directed by Jeremy Podeswa who is best known for working on television shows such as Six Feet Under, the Tudors and Nip/Tuck.

Deep in a forest in Poland, Jakob sees his parents murdered by Nazi troops and his teenage sister Bella dragged away into the night.

The petrified boy is rescued by Greek archaeologist Athos (Rade Serbedgia) who smuggles him out of Poland to his Greek island home.

Surviving the Nazi occupation, the pair start a new life in Toronto, but as an adult Jakob (Stephen Dillane) is haunted by his memories and the fate of his sister Bella.

Jakob believes "To live with ghosts requires solitude" but two women think otherwise: vivacious blonde Alex (Rosamund Pike) and sultry museum curator Michaela (Ayelet Zurer).

Waltz with Bashir

Animation picture Waltz with Bashir took the Cannes Film Festival by storm earlier this summer and it comes to the UK looking for similar success.

This Israeli picture depicts the massacre of the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982.

One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, the same number of beasts.

The two men conclude that there�s a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. Ari is surprised that he can�t remember a thing anymore about that period of his life.

Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself.

As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images...

Arranged

Arranged looks at the tradition of arranged marriages in a modern society and is one of the minorty American pictures that feature in the line-up.

A pleasing well-paced film that looks at the parallel lives of two young women who meet and become friends whilst teaching at a college in Brooklyn, New York. One of the women is an Orthodox Jewess and the other a traditional Muslim.

As their friendship develops, over the course of a year, they begin to realise they have more in common with each other than with their other more worldly colleagues.

Furthermore they are both dealing with their families� expectations and preparations for them to accept arranged marriages.

Blessed is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh

Hannah Senesh was just 22 when she parachuted into Nazi-occupied Europe with a small band of Jewish volunteers from Palestine: the only military rescue mission for Jews during the Holocaust.

A gifted student from a wealthy Budapest family, Hannah became a committed Zionist in the face of growing anti-Semitism in Hungary, emigrating to Palestine in 1939 without her beloved mother Catherine.

Hannah�s mission ended in tragedy when she was captured and executed in a Gestapo prison, yet her poetry and diaries have left an inspirational legacy.

Other films that are on the line-up include Spain's The Clown and the F�hrer, Cup Final and Description of a Memory from Israel, Forget Baghdad from Switzerland and Let�s Dance, a France/Switzerland collaboration.