Michaela no longer wants to be Jewish. She wants to become a goy (a non-Jew) - a part of the 'majority of society' that is not co-opted: not for diversity, not for Israel and not for the supposedly flourishing Jewish life in Germany. A self-experiment that explores questions of identity.
Discourses of identity are about the power to define, self- and external determination. Everyone is eager to find and live life according to their “true” identity. And yet how do you shake off an identity? Michaela Kobsa-Mark sets a self-experiment in motion. Taking in religion, nationality, biology and society, she explores the blurred parameters of what makes (and doesn't make) her a Jew.
Text: Charlotte Kühn
English: Peter Rickerby
Runs together with THE PRESIDENT'S TAILOR (Rick Minnich, DE 2024, 39 min).
Following the screenings there will be a Q&A with the director Michaela Kobsa-Mark.
Credits
original title THREE ATTEMPTS AT GOYIFICATION
international title THREE ATTEMPTS AT GOYIFICATION
german title THREE ATTEMPTS AT GOYIFICATION
JFBB section KINO FERMISHED
country/countries DE
year 2023
duration 47
Michaela Kobsa-Mark
BIO Michaela Kobsa-Mark is an American-German-Austrian documentary filmmaker. Her work focuses on diasporic identities in Germany and takes a participatory, humorous and intimate approach. Her work is influenced by ethnographic practice, new technologies, her "run 'n gun" approach and her search for subjects that are too complicated to be fully understood. She studies documentary directing at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.
