Our program offers cinematic encounters with the directors of the films, world premieres as well as German premieres of international titles. After most screenings, there are moderated film discussions about the backgrounds and artistic realization of the films. An overview of all guests and scheduled film talks can be found below the respective films.
Our panels offer an additional opportunity for deeper insights into individual topics.
THE FOLLOWING HIGHLIGHTS ARE PLANNED:
80 years of CCC-Film
Wed 6.05. | FILMKUNST 66 Berlin
4 pm
80 years ago, in 1946, survivor Artur Brauner founded the Central Cinema Company (CCC) amid the ruins of Berlin. To mark this anniversary, and in cooperation with the Deutsche Kinemathek, we present two newly restored and digitised CCC films, introduced by film historian Johannes Praetorius-Rhein
SCREENINGS
MAN AND BEAST
Edwin Zbonek, DE/YU 1963, 88 min
In a concentration camp, two brothers face each other – one an imprisoned forced labourer, the other an SS officer. When, shortly before the end of the war, the camp’s inmates are to be murdered, Franz (Götz George) escapes to alert the Red Army. What follows is a relentless manhunt.
Text: Johannes Praetorius-Rhein
DER DAUNENTRÄGER
Janusz Kijowski, FR/DE/PL 1992, 118 min
The young couple Alex and Fryda flee the Warsaw Ghetto with photographic evidence of Nazi crimes. When they encounter a German woman willing to hide them, they pose as siblings. Out of this fragile dependence, an affair begins. Starring Hanna Schygulla and Julie Delpy.
Text: Johannes Praetorius-Rhein
Public event at the Felleshus | Nordic Embassies
Wed 6.05. 17:00 – 22:00
Free Entry | Language: English| registration necessary - here
DISCUSSION Jewish Themes in Nordic Film – Exceptions or the Rule?
5:00-6:00 pm
How is Jewishness represented in films from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden? Which aspects are highlighted, and what are the prospects for these films in terms of funding and box office success?
Guests: Nina F. Grünfeld, director; Uta Arning, director; Rebecca Pruzan, producer; Gideon Bolotowsky, Honorary Chair of the Jewish Community of Helsinki
Moderated by Programme Director Bernd Buder
SCREENINGS
Nordic Jewish Focus Short Film Programme
6:10 pm
Dockan Glick / A Doll Named Glick (Uta Arning, SE 2026, 11‘ #coming-of-age#family#fiction) | Mischmasch (Uta Arning SE 2023, 30‘ #doc#encounters) | Parents (Jonas Lajboschitz, DK 2025, 19‘ #fiction#family#drama) | Snipped (Alexander Saul, DK 2025, 14‘ #fiction#humor#encounters)
Never Alone 20:00
Klaus Härö, FI/EE/SE/DE/AT 2024, 85‘ #fiction#drama#political
Matinee: Holocaust Education in times of growing antisemitism
FR 8. Mai 2026 | FILMKUNST 66 Berlin
Film from 10:30 am | Panel from 12:45 pm| Language: German
Where does Holocaust education stand today? And what role can film play
in conveying knowledge of – and fostering awareness about – the Shoah?
Together with the Claims Conference, the JFBB invites you to a special matinée
on the 81st anniversary of the end of World War II. The focus will be the film
Son of Saul. With its striking visual style, the Oscar-winning film tells the story
of the Shoah in an embodied, immersive way. Even ten years after its premiere,
this cinematic masterpiece continues to prompt reflection on the events
of the past decades and to inspire new approaches to Holocaust education.
SCREENING
SON OF SAUL
lászló Nemes, HU 2015, 107 min, only German subtitles
László Nemes’ film Son of Saul depicts everyday life in Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944 from the perspective of a Sonderkommando member. The camera stays tightly focused on the protagonist, while the horrors of the camp remain blurred in the background. Saul risks his life to give a boy a proper burial. A radical perspective on the Shoah.
Text: Lea Wohl von Haselberg
Panel: Pressure from All Sides: Who Gets to Tell the Story?
Sat 9.5. 11:00 am | FILMKUNST 66 Berlin
Free Entry | Language: English
What does it mean to tell a story about Israeli-Palestinian contexts in the Israeli cinematic space and what does it take to do so? Bringing together filmmakers working across different contexts, the panel looks at the structures that shape these narratives, with a particular focus on films with Arab protagonists and themes, and how they are received, interpreted, or challenged once they are out in the world.
Guests: Isaac Zablocki, Other Israel Film Festival; Rotem Heymann, Albi Fund; Benjamin Freidenberg, Sam Spiegel Film & Television School; Bissan Tibi, Director SILA
Moderated by Naomi Levari
A conversation with Maria Schrader
Sat 9.5. | FILMKUNST 66 Berlin
Film from 7 pm | talk from 9:15 pm | Event and film in German
Moderation: Lea Wohl von Haselberg Maria Schrader is the face of the 32nd edition of the JFBB and has explored Jewish themes in numerous films, both as a director and an actress.This makes her the perfect guest for an in-depth conversation about her cinematic work.
Screening
VOR DER MORGENRÖTE
Maria Schrader, DE/AT/FR 2016, 106 min The film offers a fragmented portrayal of the writer Stefan Zweig’s exile in America. Rather than a continuous biography, it presents an episodic look at the conditions and (im)possibilities of life after the loss of home, freedom, and a vision of Europe.
Text: Lea Wohl von Haselberg
From Berlin to Hollywood
Sun 10.5. | KINO KROKODIL Berlin
6 pm
Conclusion of the series “From Berlin to Hollywood” in cooperation with the Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin – Centrum Judaicum and Urania Berlin e. V. to mark the 120th anniversary of Billy Wilder’s birth.
Screening
HOTEL BERLIN
Peter Godfrey, US 1945, 98 min, 16 mm
Based on Vicki Baum’s novel, the film is set in a Berlin hotel shortly before the end of the war. The city lies in ruins, and by chance, people with very different attitudes toward the regime have been brought together …
Followed by a conversation in German between Knut Elstermann and Lea Wohl von Haselberg.
Text: Lea Wohl von Haselberg
Ken Adam and Chaim Heinz Fenchel – German-Jewish film architects
Sun 10.5. | Jüdisches Museum Berlin
2 pm
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the opening of The Libeskind building, this year’s collaboration with the Jewish Museum Berlin focuses on the theme of architecture. We present two Berlin-born production designers – Heinz Fenchel (1906–1988) and Ken Adam (1921–2016) – and explore their strikingly different bodies of work. Introcution into the programme by Lea Wohl von Haselberg in German.
Screenings
THE TROUBLE WITH MONEY
Max Ophüls, NL 1936, 98 min
Komedie Om Geld, a Dutch comedy directed by Max Ophüls with a screenplay by Walter Schlee, cinematography by Eugen Schüfftan, and set design by Heinz Fenchel, was largely shaped by Jewish film exiles.
DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB
Stanley Kubrick, UK/US 1964, 95 min
Supporting film: THIS IS THE WAR ROOM
Boris Hars-Tschachotin, DE 2017, 13 min
Stanley Kubrick’s satire Dr. Strangelove is an analysis of the Cold War’s military-nuclear dynamics and has taken on new relevance in light of today’s geopolitical tensions. At the centre of it all is the War Room, designed by Ken Adam, whose design emphasises the absurd detachment of the seat of power from reality.
Texte: Lea Wohl von Haselberg