Open-air cinema at the Fraenkelufer Synagogue

Starting on August 23, every Wednesday there will be films and exciting discussions about current issues of being Jewish.

Join us for a cinema experience on warm summer evenings against the backdrop of the historic Fraenkelufer Synagogue! (Fraenkelufer 10, 10999 Berlin)

With the open-air cinema, the synagogue opens its doors to the neighborhood. Following this motto, this year's program focuses on films that deal with neighborhood in a Jewish context. Different points of view will be shown and a platform for open dialogue will be created. Each screening will be followed by a discussion with the audience and with the filmmakers.

ADMISSION IS FREE.

The Jewish Film Festival Berlin Brandenburg supports the summer cinema together with the Szloma Albam Foundation, the coordination and expert office "Democracy Live!" Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and the Jewish Community of Berlin.

Film Program 2023

8/23 Neighborhood and Intercultural Solidarity in Times of Nationalism

Neighbors
Dir. Mano Khalil, 2021, Switzerland.
Kurdish, Arabic, Hebrew, English with German UTs.

A small village 40 years ago on the Syrian-Turkish border - little Sero experiences his first school year, plays naughty pranks with his comrades, dreams of a TV so he can finally watch cartoons. On the Sabbath, he is allowed to light the lights of his Jewish neighbors, with whom his family has a close friendship. At the same time, he has to witness how the adults are increasingly crushed by nationalistic arbitrariness and violence. With a fine sense of humor and satire, director Mano Khalil paints a picture of a childhood that also finds light moments under the Assad dictatorship. The film is inspired by his personal childhood experiences and spans the touching narrative to the Syrian tragedy of the present.

Guest: Actress Ivan Anderson
Moderator: Nimrod Baratz JVB e.V.
(In German)

8/30/2013 Dystopia among neighbors

We might as well be dead
Dir. Natalia Sinelnikova, 2022, Germany, Romania.
German, Polish, with English UTs.
In collaboration with the Jewish Film Festival Berlin and Brandenburg

It's just a high-rise building on the edge of a forest, but you can tell from the people struggling to find acceptance into the house community that this must be a last civilized bastion in a world gone off the rails. To live here, shielded from a perilous environment, is the goal. But when the janitor's dog disappears, an irrational fear spreads among the residents. Anna, the security officer, calls for reason and begins to search for the animal. Her daughter Iris is convinced that she herself is responsible for the disappearance with her "evil eye" and locks herself in the bathroom. When a newly formed vigilante group demands stricter security measures and a new aptitude test for the entire household, Anna begins to fear for her right to stay.

In Natalia Sinelnikova's feature-length debut, the microcosm of the high-rise forms the playing field for a timeless dystopian experimental set-up. At the center is the power of fear as a self-replicating system that can disrupt the cohesion of society and has long dictated current social and political discourses.

Guest: Director Natalia Sinelnikova
Moderator: Amos Geva JFBB
(In German)

6.9.23 The German-Jewish symbiosis as a thriller

**Hermann - Polizeiruf 110
Dir. Dror Zahavi, 2021,Germany
German with English UTs

A civil engineer is found dead in the German-Polish border region, but she was murdered in Cottbus, where she was supervising the renovation of an apartment block. Inspector Raczek travels to his old haunt to investigate the case with an ex-colleague, which involves unresolved house ownership issues between a long-established resident and a Holocaust survivor. Carefully developed (TV) crime thriller that quite cleverly takes up the guilt-ridden German past as a theme.

Guest: Director Dror Zahavi
Moderator: Dr. Daniel Wildmann, Jewish Museum Berlin
(In German)