Programme is online

From June 18 to 23, the international films show the diversity of Jewish life: from thrillers and comedies to impressive documentaries. In total, there are 71 films from 15 production countries, including Canada, Australia and Spain.

The anniversary edition will once again focus on the two competitions for the best feature film and documentary. Complemented by FERMISHED, the colorful mix of genre cinema. There is also the short film program NOSH NOSH (Yiddish for treats).

With the terrorist attacks by Hamas on the Israeli civilian population, terror is once again increasingly in the spotlight. The violence staged by the media, characterized by ruthlessness and a lack of boundaries, is penetrating the living rooms and, especially via social media, the private lives of people all over the world, spreading fear and uncertainty.

The Film seriesFacing the Fear - Cinematic Reflections on Terror, Trauma and Resilience remembers attacks on the Jewish world and global society through a variety of cinematic approaches. Films shown include SUPERNOVA. THE MUSIC FESTIVAL MASSACRE (Yossi Bloch/Duki Dror, IL 2023), which reconstructs the events of October 7 in Israel using cell phone footage and witness testimonies. The film DER ZWEITE ANSCHLAG (Mala Reinhardt, DE 2018) allows the families of the people murdered by the so-called 'NSU' to have their say and tells of the racist suspicions of the investigating authorities as a second violence to which the relatives are exposed. The feature film MAIXABEL (Iciar Bollain, ES 2021), on the other hand, shows Basque society trying to overcome the deep wounds of violence, even years after the end of the ETA terror.

The film program will be accompanied by panel discussions in which experts will discuss the various forms of terror and how they are staged in the media.

From 1945 until the fall of the Iron Curtain, Soviet-style state socialism repeatedly led to anti-Semitic campaigns and anti-Semitic attitudes were also present in everyday life. The spectrum ranges from the Slánský trials in the ČSSR to forced expulsions in Poland in 1968 and "anti-Zionist" propaganda in the GDR. The film series Break or continuity? "Anti-Zionism" and anti-Semitism under socialism and afterwards shows how the topic was addressed between the lines in contemporary films and how it was dealt with after 1989.

The film series shows classics such as Paweł Pawlikowski's IDA (PL/DK/FR/GBR 2013) and Alexander Askoldov's DIE KOMMISSARIN (USSR 1967). There is also a Kafkaesque allusion to the Slánský trials and Konrad Wolf's GOYA (GDR 1971), which can also be read as an allusion to the show trials under Stalinism. In GDR propaganda films such as DIE STÜRMER (Dagobert Loewenberg, GDR 1967) and TV documentaries such as ISRAEL '74 (Sabine Katins GDR 1974), a striking proximity to contemporary criticism of Israel from the left becomes clear, including the areas of overlap with anti-Semitism.

The Czech documentary SON OF A PUBLIC ENEMY (Eva Tomanová, CZ 2022) uses the example of Otto Šling, one of those sentenced to death in the Slánský trials, how the different traumas of the Shoah and the show trials under socialism continue to have an impact today and in Marcel Łozinski's SIEBEN JUDEN IN MEINER KLASSE (PL 1991), Jews who were forced to leave Poland in 1968 due to the anti-Semitic campaign by Wladisław Gomułka's government meet again.

With the Exhibition Sex. Jewish Positions, the Jewish Museum Berlin explores the significance of sexuality in Judaism from a variety of perspectives. The accompanying film series at the Jewish Film Festival Berlin and Brandenburg complements the exhibition with films about taboos, desire, sex work and the struggle for sexual education and equality. The short film program is fun, serious, political, provocative and sexy, seducing viewers into the most diverse worlds of Jewish sexual positions: Religious regulations, Berlin in the 1930s, excursions into the BDSM scene. 90 minutes break with stereotypes and common (pre)positions in a wide variety of ways.