Sections
Section Feature Film Competition
Eleven entries compete for the Gershon Klein Feature Film Award. Named after the Berlin cinema pioneer.
Feature films that deal with Jewish life and culture in the past, present and future. In which Jewish characters and themes essentially carry the plot and which originate from Jewish filmmakers. Preference will be given to German premieres. The films submitted should not have had a theatrical release, television broadcast or streaming premiere in Germany before the JFBB. The production year of the films should not be older than 2023.
The prize will be awarded to the director by an international festival jury and comes with prize money of 3000 EUR.
In general all films are shown with German and English subtitles. Please refer to the information provided with each film for the respective language version.
Section Documentary Film Competition
Nine entries compete for the Gershon Klein Feature Film Award. Named after the Berlin cinema pioneer.
Documentaries that deal with Jewish life and culture in the past, present and future. In which Jewish characters and themes essentially carry the plot and which originate from Jewish filmmakers. The German premiere of the submitted films is required.
The prize is awarded to the director by an international festival jury and comes with prize money of 3000 EUR.
In general all films are shown with German and English subtitles. Please refer to the information provided with each film for the respective language version.
Section KINO FERMISHED
A colourful mix of genres. The special cinema of the JFBB.
In general all films are shown with German and English subtitles. Please refer to the information provided with each film for the respective language version.
Section short films: Nosh Nosh
Nosh Nosh means "treats" in Yiddish. But these short films are neither snacks for in-between meals nor a greeting from the kitchen. They are works of art in their own right. They are sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet and always full of thematic and formal diversity. The cuisine is international. It tastes good to everyone and fills you up. Nosh Nosh, in other words.
In 2024 JFBB presents two short film programmes "Nosh Nosh".
In general all films are shown with German and English subtitles. Please refer to the information provided with each film for the respective language version.
Section Assembling The Pieces
The programme Assembling the Pieces reassembles fragments of a shattered reality. In personal, documentary and artistic forms, the films tell of October 7 and its aftermath: of loss, survival and hope – and of how people try to comprehend the incomprehensible, fragment by fragment.
Section Break or continuity? "Anti-Zionism" and anti-Semitism under socialism and afterwards. Part II: Anti-Semitismus in Post-socialism
Back in 2024, the JFBB turned its attentions to antisemitism under socialism – from the Slanský trials to the "anti-Zionist" propaganda of the late 1960s and early 1970s and the resultant pressure on Jews in the People's Republic of Poland to leave the country. These campaigns were often accompanied by latent antisemitic sentiments amongst the population at large, unsurprisingly so given the Shoah was rarely the subject of public discussion in the so-called Eastern Bloc. The Jewish victims receded from view, obscured behind the communist victims of National Socialism whilst, with the victory over fascism, antisemitism was declared “eradicated”. Behind the facade of this "basta" approach, nationalist, right-wing extremist and antisemitic tendencies were able to both persist and spread. The fall of the Iron Curtain brought new freedoms and opportunities for Jews while, concurrently, a rise in openly antisemitic attitudes could be observed.
Supported by the The Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Germany | Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur.
Anyone who remembered the Shoah was widely considered a "traitor"; the bond between non-Jews and Jews was severed in many places; silence prevailed, often to the present day. Tens of thousands of Jews emigrated, especially from the former Soviet Union. East Germany remembers the 1990s as the "baseball bat years"; right-wing extremist attacks and racism were commonplace; antisemitism was omnipresent yet rarely discussed. This year's film series on antisemitism in the post-socialist period sheds light on the situations Jews were faced with both during and after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc – between silence and remembrance, harassment and hope.