Starting the crucial phase

Until her retirement at the end of last year, Nicola Galliner, founder and longtime director, built the JFBB into the largest Jewish film festival in Germany. Under the leadership of the new organizers Doreen Goethe and Andreas Stein, from whose 'workshop' Brandenburg cultural highlights such as the world-renowned FilmFestival Cottbus, the Nacht der Kreativen Köpfe ('Night of Creative Minds') or the Gartenfestival Park und Schloss Branitz ('Garden Festival Park and Branitz Castle') originate, the success story of the film festival is to be continued.

Program director Bernd Buder ( e.g. FilmFestival Cottbus, Cinedays Skopje) and the JFBB program collective are responsible for the film festival program. It involves producer Naomi Levari (CHAINED, FIG TREE), filmmaker Amos Geva (CHICHINETTE), who also co-directs the short film platform 'T-Port', film scholar Lea Wohl von Haselberg, who teaches and researches at the Film University Babelsberg "Konrad Wolf", and director and recent Grimme Award winner Arkadij Khaet (MASEL TOV COCKTAIL).
"Jewish Life in Color. We celebrate the spectrum of Jewish identities in cinema: different genres, young talents and diverse perspectives from the non-secret world. We discuss what Jewish visibility means on screen," Arkadij Khaet paraphrases this year's JFBB selection. "Our program is like a good massage. Where it hurts, you have to press on it especially hard. Yalla, off to the cinema, we serve gefilte films for consumption."

The Jewish Film Festival Berlin and Brandenburg 2021 explores and reflects Jewish history, present and future with 45 feature films, documentaries, short films and high-end series.