19.08.2021

THE PAINTED BIRD & PROMISED LANDS are the winners of the 27th JFBB’s main awards

Until August 22, the Jewish Film Festival Berlin | Brandenburg shows the most important films and series from the Jewish world in Potsdam and Berlin. The winning films of the 27th JFBB have been selected. The JFBB Feature Film Jury, consisting of Laura Cazés, Dani Levy and Yousef Sweid, awards THE PAINTED BIRD by Czech director Václav Marhoul with the Gershon Klein Feature Film Award. A Special Mention is dedicated to DEAR THOMAS by Andreas Kleinert. The first-ever Gershon Klein Documentary Award goes to Yael Reuveny for PROMISED LANDS, and SCHOCKEN by Noemi Schory receives an Honorable Mention. The prize for intercultural Dialogue goes to ENDPHASE by Hans Hochstöger. The prize for the promotion of young filmmakers is won by filmmaker Sharon Ryba-Kahn. Both ENDPHASE and DISPLACED by Sharon Ryba-Kahn are available for streaming via VoD on jfbb.info until the end of August.

"With the awards we want to raise awareness of Jewish filmmaking and Jewish perspectives on the past, present and future", comments JFBB Programme Director Bernd Buder. "On the closing weekend a few more JFBB highlights await our audience: with the diverse short film program NOSH NOSH, the JFBB presents the audience very different impressions of Jewish everyday life, between comedy and exile, between Israel, Turkey and Saxony-Anhalt. With ENTANGLED we present probably the first screening of a film by an ultra-orthodox director in Germany. Dina Perlstein's political thriller will be screened as part of the "Behind the Scenes" program. In cooperation with the Seret International Film Festival, we will reflect on the appeal of films and series set in the Orthodox milieu or produced for Orthodox communities on the JFBB closing day at the Jewish Museum Berlin. In particular, filmmakers who produce their film formats for a female audience will play an important role in this context. Experts such as film critic Marlyn Vinig and SHTISEL and AUTONOMIES creator Yehonathan Indursky will have their say."

With the Gershon Klein Awards in the Feature Film and Documentary Film Competition of the JFBB, prize donors Madeleine Budde and Jacqueline Hopp commemorate their father, cinema legend Gershon (Gerhard) Klein, who died in 1999 at the age of 79. Both awards are endowed with prize money of EUR 3,000 each.

Laura Cazés, Head of Communications and Digitization at the Abteilung Kommunikation und Digitalisierung der Zentralwohlfahrtstelle der Juden in Deutschland (Central Welfare Office of Jews in Germany) and co-founder of the Jewish Women Empowerment Summit, director Dani Levy and actor Yousef Sweid award the 2021 Gershon Klein Feature Film Award to:

THE PAINTED BIRD (A/CZ/SK/2019) by Václav Marhoul

The jury dedicated an honorable mention to:
DEAR THOMAS (LIEBER THOMAS - DE/2021) by Andreas Kleinert

The documentary jury is formed by Lisa Rivo, co-director of the National Centre For Jewish Film (USA), Magda Makarczuk Strehlau, director of the Warsaw Jewish Film Festival (Poland) and filmmaker Amos Ponger (Germany). The 2021 Gershon Klein Documentary Award goes to:

PROMISED LANDS (KINDER DER HOFFNUNG – DE/IL/2021) by Yael Reuveny

The jury dedicated an honorable mention to:
SCHOCKEN (IL/DE/2020) by Noemi Schory.

Furthermore, the documentary film jury of the JFBB awards the prize for intercultural Dialogue, endowed with a prize money of 2,000 EUR, donated by the iSQI Group, to:

ENDPHASE (AT/2020) by Hans Hochstöger

The Goericke family endows the Prize for the Promotion of Young Filmmakers with a prize money of 1,000 EUR. The JFBB Program Collective awards the Prize for the Promotion of Young Filmmakers to:

Sharon Ryba-Kahn

The filmmaker is represented in the program of the 27th JFBB with her very personal and emotional documentary DISPLACED (DE/2020).