Category: UK JFF

Wow.

Final Account is an incredible documentary, interviewing the last remaining Nazis. And these are not, ‘I had to be a Nazi to keep my job as a paralegal’ kinda Nazis. We’re talking Waffen SS, the Death’s Head squad. We’re talking camp guards, people who were right in the thick of it.

My first thought was, “Why are they not in jail?” You know, in that naive way of thinking you assist in the murder of millions of people, you know, there might be some punishment. But no, they’re all in their picket-fence houses, in the same towns and cities where they grew up and wore their uniform. They wave to their neighbours, and their neighbours wave back and say, “Hi Mister So-and-So”. Evil is so mundane.

Which is kinda the point of the Final Account. It always was mundane. These men weren’t born with marks on their head saying, “You will participate in one of the greatest evils to take place on European soil”. Nah, they were born and grew up in small towns and villages, and dreamed of being a knight or a cowboy or a soldier, and when they came of age, the way to be a glorious hero was to join the SS.

What’s interesting is the range of opinion and reflections of these last surviving few.

Some are completely unrepentant, totally defiant, nostalgic for the camaraderie and grandeur of their youth, proud of their achievements, of what made them part of elite forces. “No regrets,” says one. Another has kept all his badges. “The idea was correct,” he says.

But interestingly that doesn’t equate as directly as you’d think to holocaust denial. Yes, some of them outright deny it, some claim the numbers were exaggerated, some claim that it was kept so secret no one could have known to intervene until liberation exposed it. But your auld yin with the badges, someone who is still committed to the Nazi ideals, he says it was wrong. That the Jews should have been expelled only, that to kill them was unnecessarily cruel.

Which yeah, all these are only degrees of horrific, and some might say, who gives a fuck to what extent of antisemitism they would have stopped at? And yer man might have simply been lamenting that the holocaust justified German’s division and subsequent relegation among world powers, not the deaths of millions of people. So what does it matter?

The filmmaker, Luke Holland, his grandparents were killed by the Nazis, they died somewhere unknown in the death machine. And he spent 8 years sitting with these men, listening to them, gaining their trust, and providing a space of no judgement for them to speak freely. Why?

Because the past is speaking, and we need to listen. We live in a time where all across the world people are seeing the rise of the far-right, and the normalisation of talking about people who are ‘unworthy of life’. Back then the Lebensunwertes Leben weren’t worth concerning yourself about if they died, today it’s having ‘an underlying health condition’ which means the you are an acceptable loss. None of these issues have gone away, so we need to hear from those who reached the very crescendo of horror how they got there, and hopefully warn us of how to avoid it.

Some do feel ashamed, they speak about their experiences openly to young people, letting them know, don’t believe the denial, I was there, I saw it. It’s so little and far too late, but it’s all the amends they can make.

Some say honestly, it’s the greatest shame of my life, but if you put me back there and gave me my time over again, I still don’t know if I’d do any different. Because I didn’t know what to do then, and I don’t know if I’ve changed enough that I’d know what to do now. Some claim they were afraid that if they refused orders, they’d be shot too, although no one has ever heard of that actually happening. Would they be braver than their fear if put to the test again? They say they don’t know. They didn’t think they were capable of it the first time.

It’s amazing how many of them split hairs over who was a perpetrator. “If you volunteer,” says one. “But didn’t you put yourself forward to be SS?” asks the filmmaker. Aye, but that was different. “I was a soldier,” says another, “I fought on the front. How am I supposed to know what’s going on a home?” “Weren’t you in the Death’s Head Squad in the Ukraine?” asks the filmmaker. Even up to the death camp guards, who says, “I just stood guard.” Yes, I watched them beaten, yes I watched them killed, yes I watched them burned. But I wasn’t the one doing it.

Apparently 6 million people were murdered and absolutely no one was responsible for their deaths. All these stories people tell themselves, so that they can go on living with themselves.

One Austrian woman points out, when Hitler invaded, the first people rounded up and killed were anyone who had taken a stand politically against Nazism. So all that were left were people who didn’t have that kind of committed opposition to fascism. People who didn’t want to get involved in politics, just live their lives as comfortably as they could. People who didn’t really question the status quo. People who were not happy standing out.

Final Account is a testament to be handed down to the generations to come. Soon the last living memory will disappear, and we will no longer be able to interrogate or gain insights from our past. Those who operated, administered, and stood by as the Final Solution wiped Europe’s Jewry from the map, what they tell us is a warning from history. Maybe even, or especially, the lies. For almost a century to pass and to still be unable to face the horror of what you’ve done. To tell yourself a lie about who you are for so long, you now believe it yourself.

These people were quiet, unassuming, law-abiding citizens until the 1930s, then they were complicit in mass murder for a few years, then they were quiet, unassuming, law-abiding citizens for 8 decades. Look around now and understand the possibility for that, the capacity for that, is always there.

For last, I’ll finish with a quote from Kiran Desai:

“There they were, the most commonplace of them… the most ordinary swept up in extraordinary hatred, because extraordinary hatred was, after all, a commonplace event.”

A Starry Sky Above The Roman Ghetto is a teen drama following Sofia, who decides to track down a mysterious girl whose photo she finds in a suitcase. This leads her to make a play based on the story she uncovers, uniting the Christian and Jewish kids of Rome in its production.

She finds a letter in a second-hand suitcase in the loft, along with the photo of a young girl. The letter tells the girl, Sarah Cohen, that she is loved, and to take the love which has been given her on her journey to her new life. It turns out Sarah Cohen was a young Jewish girl saved by nuns, one of whom in particular had a deep affection for her and loved her like a daughter. But an unethical prioress effectively sold her after the war, baptising her and putting her up for adoption with Christian parents.

Sofia sets herself to tracking down Sarah Cohen to give her the lost letter with the help of her friends from her own and the Jewish school. They are all creative types so they set out to turn the story into a play, so its lessons from the past can be heard.

To be honest, the kids are a little too enthusiastic about the play, defying their parents and the wishes of the local Jewish community by staging an inter-faith production. Which, on one hand it’s good to show the next generation throwing off the divisions of the past, and on the other, it’s like hey, maybe respect people’s traumas. They’re all super excited, composing music and sorting out costumes, and it’s like, calm down Dawson’s Creek, this isn’t an episode of Glee, folk are deid. It does stray more than a little into cheesy, but in pursuit of a good cause.

A hopeful story about finding ways to cross divides and heal old wounds.

I have no faith, but I was greeting within the first 5 minutes of this film. With all the films I’ve watched lately, where difference is a divide, difference is a source of conflict, it moved me to tears to watch a film where difference is neighbourhood, difference is valued, difference makes us all richer.

Ziyara is pilgrimage to the resting places of saints. In Judaism, this means people, rabbis and scholars, who were close to God. Morocca is scattered with holy sites, selpulchres of the devout. But since the mass emigration of Moroccan Jews to Israel after its founding, these places are almost exclusively taken care of by the Muslims there.

It honestly brought me to tears to see the level of care and reverence with which these sites are treated. The Muslim caretakers look after these places with such attention to detail and respect. Everything is kept not just clean, but *spotless*. One cemetery guardian taught herself Hebrew so she could catalogue the gravestones and keep the heritage for anyone who comes back to find it.

And it is not simply religious sites which are preserved. One shopkeeper, whose father took over the shop of a Jewish family after they left, has kept the mezuzah by the shop door, and by his counter. He would never think of doing anything else, he says, everything that contains the word of God is holy. Others say the same, that Jews, Christians, Muslims, are cousins of the one family, and they miss the presence of Jews in their communities like you would miss family.

Everywhere they go, they meet with kindness. And I almost cried harder at that than I have at the other films showing such sorrow. Because it is such an overlooked blessing, the simple kindness of others. And in a world where we are so wary and constantly expecting to meet the worst, kindness is just a rare and resurrecting balm.

The filmmaker visits old synagogues, where the Muslim caretaker has the keys, comes in to keep and maintain the place, and knows the traditions inside and out. In one synagogue with only a dwindling congregation of two dozen or so Jews, they ask the caretaker why he has kept 5 torahs here. “Because,” he says, “if they were sent away to a museum, how would we even know Jews were here?” The torahs remain for anyone who might come looking for the past, and somewhere in a small hope that one day their Jewish neighbours will return.

In the Casablanca Jewish museum, the Muslim curator shows the filmmaker the ancient torahs. With white gloves, treated with the utmost preciousness and respect, she unrolls the carefully conserved scrolls. Before placing them back in their enclave, she redresses them, first in a simple white cloth, then tying them with a sash, and wrapping it in a jacket of green and gold. She could not have been more tender if she was dressing a newborn babe. She says to the filmmaker, “I’ve never told anyone this before, but before I touch the torah, I say,” Bismillah”. ” Meaning ‘in the name of God’.

The detail of the history which is kept is extraordinary. Where the Jewish quarter was abandoned, and the homes fell into ruin due to the weather, Muslim guides can still tell any visitors which house belonged to who, the names of the residents, who was their rabbi. It is just incredible.

I gret throughout this movie, it was just so moving. An affirmation of the everyday miracle of human kindness and the brotherhood of man.

To the emigre Jews of Morocco, your neighbours miss you.

God, this made me wanna learn how to play the piano.

My dad used to say, when you see someone play an instrument, it’s like they can make magic in their hands. It’s very true, and it never seems to get old.

Tuning is the kind of documentary I love, one that invites you sit, stay, and watch for while. Look out at the world there is around you. It is 50 minutes focused on the piano in Central Station in Tel Aviv.

You know the piano under the big clock in Central Station here in Glasgow? It’s like that. And sitting and watching it for an hour, you get to see all the life of the city go past. The older lady who comes over to sing to the young guy’s tune. The lovers who can barely get through the song without snogging. The workie putting up signs before opening, who sits down and belts out this amazing piece. Just incredible.

But fuck, there’s a lot of soldiers kicking about. It makes you realise, that must just be normal there, for every third person to be in uniform. No one bats a eyelid, but I’d find that really alarming, all these folk cutting about in khaki, their cudgel and their bunnet stuck under their shoulder strap.

And the music is so great. Classics known the world over, ragtime, rap, recognisable chart hits, and Israeli songs I was less familiar with. Some of the songs are so moving and so well performed. It’s amazing the level of talent that just passes by you on a daily basis.

After the past year, with all the madness, treat yourself to 50 minutes to sit down and simply see the world. It’s lovely.

Thou Shalt Not Hate is about an Italian doctor, son of a Holocaust survivor, whose path crosses with a family of neo-Nazis. It is a film about how we deal with the inheritance of hate, and what we might be willing to sacrifice to see the cycle end.

Simone is a dashing, middle-aged doctor, who is mourning the recent death of his father, with whom he had a very complicated relationship. He unexpectedly is the sole witness a hit and run, and begins to attend to the victim. But as he finds the man to be covered in swastika tattoos, he stops, stands back, and simply waits for the ambulance to arrive. The victim dies, bleeding out.

Simone struggles with guilt over the coming days, and looks up the guy’s family. He has a daughter in her 20s who has returned to care for her brothers, one a teenager, one just a child. They are broke and scrambling to make ends meet. So when the daughter, Marica, starts working as a cleaner, Simone hires her to do his flat.

What starts off as a wary and tentative act of amends, deepens into something more real. Despite violent resistance from Marica’s teenage brother, this seemingly uncrossable divide begins to shrink with humanising interaction.

Thou Shalt Not Hate is not a fairytale of resolution but a drama about how we make hate one step at a time, and how we can unmake it the same way. There are no guarantees, the effects carry on across generations, and there will never be a final victory or final defeat, but every choice makes a difference, and every choice is in our power to make.

The Black Book was a collection of first-person accounts of the Nazi extermination of Soviet Jews during the war. A detailed documentation of antisemitism, it itself became the target of antisemitism within the USSR.

This is a fantastic documentary, utilising a huge amount of contemporary footage, and the writings of the people directly involved. Rather than using a talking head format, it lets the past speak for itself throughout. It is deeply moving.

When the Nazis invaded the USSR in 1941, the Soviets were caught totally unprepared. They had placed faith in the non-aggression pact, and on a basic level, they didn’t have the money and machinery to meet the incoming forces. The blitzkrieg was swift and brutal.

Reports of Nazi crimes against Jews began coming from the provinces, and a Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was formed. It involved all the most prominent Soviet Jews, including Solomon Mikhoels, the famous actor, comedian, and theatre director, and Itsik Fefer, the poet. Because they were Jews, they could appeal for help from American Jews without it being seen as Stalin turning to America for help. This saved face, while at the same time he was desperate to bring the Americans into the war.

Mikhoels did his best and more, returning with shedloads of money, enough to buy planes and tanks that were sorely needed. While in America, he held the biggest ever Soviet address to an American audience. He attracted the interest of high profile figures like Paul Robeson.

And there the idea of The Black Book was born. To make a permanent collection of the accounts of Nazi atrocities, so that it might be disseminated to inspire anti-Nazi fervour now, and be used as evidence in the prosecution of German war criminals later. The JAC enthusiastically proposed the idea, and it received approval from Stalin to be created.

The writer Ilya Ehrenburg has been a correspondent in Berlin in the years before the second war, witnessing the rise of the Nazis, and had sent reports back that their ambition for dominance would soon turn its eye to Russia. In those days both he and his work were favoured by Stalin, so him contributing to The Black Book was seen as a boon.

Another writer, one without Ilya’s stature yet, but brimfull of passion and talent, was Vasili Grossman. He was exempt from service, but volunteered for the Red Army. He rose to prominence as a battle reporter embedded with the troops during the Siege of Stalingrad. His mother was murdered by the Nazis, although he never found out how, where, or the location of her remains. Grossman was dedicated to giving the dead a voice through the Black Book.

This was not an easy endeavour, there were so few survivors. In areas where tens of thousands of Jews had resided, only a handful remained. People who had been buried alive in mass graves were the only witnesses left to the eradication of entire villages.

The Germans were trying to cover up their crimes on their retreat, destroying even the remains of their victims. Vasili saw Babi Yar, a ravine in the Ukraine where the Jews of Kiev were massacred, some 100, 000 people. When the Nazis withdrew, they exhumed the corpses and cremated them so that all that remained was black ash scattered for miles around. Vasili was also there for the liberation of Treblinka, and saw horrors beyond imagining. He took a full nervous breakdown afterwards and had to be sent home to his family.

Nonetheless he resumed his work when he recovered, although never fully. His writings on it became The Hell of Treblinka, which was published as a seperate pamphlet and distributed during the Nuremberg trials as evidence for the prosecution. It was intended to be eventually included in the final published version of The Black Book.

But things seemed to have stalled in that area. For one, Stalin was resentful that Vasili’s articles on the Battle of Stalingrad had engrandised the sacrifices and bravery of ordinary soldiers and citizens, instead of Stalin as a master strategist. For another, there were too many reports for Stalin’s liking of Soviets collaborating with the Nazis in the extermination of Jews. It was okay to expose the vicious antisemitism of the enemy, but suspect to do it for their own society.

Also, the leash was off antisemitism in the USSR. The Nazis had shown what antisemites could get away with, and the native antisemitism had been allowed to be brought right to the fore of society, and normalised to such an extent. Simultaneously Stalin, now the formal front was no longer being fought, turned his attentions back to his own country, and fighting his own supposed enemies at home. It was decided that Soviet Jews were now the enemy.

Ilya was removed from his post at the Red Star, as it was deemed to have “too many” Jews. Mikhoels and Fefer were deemed to be potential traitors for having been in America, despite only going because Stalin wanted them to, in a classic Stalin move. And the Black Book, it was remembered, had been devised as an idea on the American trip, which meant it too was now tainted with suspicion.

Stalin refused to publish the Black Book, and banned any copies from the USSR. Mikhoels was assassinated on Stalin’s orders, and his body left in the street. The members of JAC were rounded, arrested, imprisoned and tortured. During this time, Paul Robeson visited from America and asked to see his good friends from the anti-fascism trip, Mikhoels and Fefer. No one could tell him that Mikhoels was already dead, and they had to pull Fefer out the KGB dungeons, and cover his injuries with makeup to make him presentable to produce for Robeson. Fefer was in such a state he couldn’t even speak, and tried to desperately make gestures to Robeson about his safety.

Eventually all but 2 of JAC’s members were put to death. Vasili survived because the soldiers of the Red Army remembered his conduct and support during the Battle of Stalingrad. But he was blacklisted and his work was suppressed for the majority of his life. Ilya managed to survive by caving to state pressure and becoming a voicepiece, seeming to validate the antisemitism coming out the Kremlin. However, he campaigned to have the Black Book released until his dying day.

So what became of the Black Book? Some copies managed to be smuggled abroad, but the book itself would not be published in Russia until 20-fucking-14. Yeah, you heard me. The Black Book got published in Russia at the same time The Lego Movie was in cinemas.

An absolutely insane story, about the unbelievable cruelty of human beings, but also the perseverance and bravery of a few. The truth will out and some manuscripts will not burn.

Ugh. First dud of the UK Jewish Film Festival.

The opening scene of the movie is of a young woman trying to drown herself in a tin tub. She introduces herself as the narrator, and she addresses Modigliani in second person. She is Jeanne Hebuterne. She was an artist and a painter, and Modigliani knocked her up as a teenager, getting her disowned by her conservative religious family, and she died committing suicide while unwed and pregnant with her second child, two days after his death. So this movie that is titled Modigliani, which is about Modigliani, uses the suicide of a 21-year-old young woman as a dramatic attention-grabber for its documentary about this man. This got my back up immediately.

I like art and I like documentaries about artists, but every time I hear the world ‘genius’ used, it just sets my teeth on edge. Genius is the early 20th century art equivalent of bro. It usually means you fuck teenagers, but are a great laugh when drunk. It’s like a get-out clause which wallpapers over a lot of human damage, usually harm to women.

Modigliani is no different. What you think of his art aside, his story’s really not that interesting. He wanted to be an artist and he became an artist. There’s not a whole more to it that isn’t just name-dropping. He got TB as a kid, and it eventually killed him at 35. In between times he drank, womanised, and was broke. There, I just saved you 90 minutes.

Maverick Modigliani fills up the lack of actual events with detailed analysis of artistic influences, and what his contribution was within larger artistic movements. Again, if it’s done well, I can find that interesting, but if it’s not, it just drags. Plus the discussion around Primativism was just clang-clang with that incredibly problematic subject.

Honestly don’t know what else to add, because I honestly don’t feel like there’s a lot to address. Passable as a documentary, if you ignore everything other than the intellectual fapping over this dude.

Oh, that was so good!

Sublet is about middle-aged, fastidious travel writer Michael who sublets an apartment in Tel Aviv from Tomer, 20-something hipster. It’s basically an Air BnB meet-cute.

This film is basically an ode to inter-generational friendship. Tomer wakes Michael up to the world around him, giving him healing and hope, and Michael makes Tomer consider things a little more deeply, feel things a little more sincerely. It’s just beautiful. It takes place over 5 days, and it’s a love story, just the love of friendship.

Michael is married, monogamous, and still recovering from the loss of a pregnancy. Tomer is supping from the bi banquet of life, ordering guys off Grindr. They’re in completely different places in their life, and completely different people, but they have an affinity for one another.

My favourite scene in this was Tomer taking Michael to see his friend Daria’s dance production with her Palestinian lover, who she has a very intense on-again-off-again relationship. Pure Pina Bausch Tanztheater. Like fucking with your clothes on. And barely that.

Speaking of fucking, my other favourite scenes are any scene where Tomer gets his kit off. The sexy scenes are hawt. And the guy who plays Tomer – delicious.

I liked seeing hipsters portrayed positively, creative and passionate, appreciative of overlooked or forgotten things, even if there still is gentle humour about their foibles. And I like seeing queer inter-generational interaction portrayed positively, instead of focusing on ideological rifts.

A warm and lovely film about the healing effects of the love of friendship.

My Papa would have loved this film.

Proper classic style comedy, from the very first scene, with the main character espousing his efficacious detecting methods, while in the background a store is pilfered by half a dozen people. Officer Azulai is clueless, with a heart of gold. His naivety is matched only by his honesty. He is what the police should be, so is blind to what they are, and fails to uphold his orders at every turn. In short, his character is a satire on the idea that the better a human being you are, the worse cop you are.

He is moved by every sob story, writing folk traffic tickets, then paying the fines himself. He has a beggar that follows him around, and Azulai keeps hustling him out and putting money in his hand at the same time. He’s drafted in suited up in riot gear to break up a crowd of Orthodox zealots who are chucking rocks at motors driving on the Sabbath, but instead engages them in a lengthy religious debate on whether their actions are permissible according to the Torah. He’s taken to raid a bunch of hookers, but he makes pals with a lassie, ends up talking to her about her work, and comes to agree that there’s nothing shameful about it and it should be legalised.

Everyone likes him. The climbers above him who want him fired for incompetence are constantly being thwarted by his guileless appeal to the community and others. A delegation of polis from France show up, and try to take him out on the bevvy. He wrongly tries to arrest a dude for being a terrorist, and the guy takes him out for a steak dinner and dancing. His childlike earnestness renders him endearing even to the criminals in the neighbourhood.

So when it looks like his contract won’t be renewed, they decide to set him up for a big bust to make him look good to the brass. However this proves more difficult than thought, due to the aforementioned incompetence.

Just a classic comedy, that gives satire a heart.

This movie is so fucking Russian.

Like Dostoyevsky levels of Russian. Like just short of a fallen noblewoman driving her shoeless children through the snow, singing the songs she recited at court. It feels like a play. You know, the ones called Winter, and you’re just waiting for everyone to get tuberculosis.

With the feel of a Russian classic set in the 21st century, the film is about two lovers, Emma and Gregory. Genuinely devoted to one another, they have lost everything in the old country and come to Israel to start a new life. But whereas in Russia they were Jews, in Israel they are Russians. And life as new immigrants is a hand-to-mouth affair. Gregory was an engineer, and now works two jobs, both of them security, trading on the stereotype of Russian toughness. In reality though, both of these jobs are emasculating, taking shit from members of the public, who barely see him, for next to no money.

Emma starts the film with a job handing out leaflets, which I’ve done and hey – I hear you – it’s soul-destroying. When her boss sexually harasses her, offering a promotion for a fuck, she tells him where to get off on the spot. But she repents at her leisure as she watches Gregory drown in their threadbare poverty.

He has lost his hope, and so lost his faith. He sets his sights on teaching their pet parrot to speak, which if you’ve read any Russian literature you know means that parrot’s days are numbered.

When the offer of work appears as a life drawing model, Emma feels she can’t refuse. Despite the fact she’s clearly not thrilled to be doing it, despite the fact she knows Gregory would flip his shit if he knew she was taking off her clothes for money, she feels she cannot let her pride get in the way of their finances again.

Enter Alon, and the second couple in this film. Alon is a wealthy, middle-class businessman, who dabbles in art to maintain his cultured persona. Whenever he neglects his wife (or it’s heavily implied gets some stray) he shows up with something expensive as an apology.

Alon has everything Gregory does not have, and nothing that he does. Alon’s marriage is one where either partner barely registers each other. His wife is schtupping his best friend, an aging, vaping emo. Meanwhile Gregory clings to his wife as his only reason for living, the only thing that makes him feel good or alive, the only person who sees him with dignity.

Alon tries to pursue Emma, overtly as a private model for his paintings, but with a constant undercurrent that, of course, this will lead to fucking. Emma initially poses for the money, but bails when she feels like there’s more hanging in the air, and the pressure of keeping what she’s doing from Gregory becomes too much.

Finally things look up when Gregory lands a well-paying job at a tech company, and even looks set to get a promotion. The boss invites him to his house for dinner, and, you guessed it, his new boss is Alon. Coincidence is a bitch, no?

You know if a film is called The Dinner, then everything you’re watching is just dominoes being lined up for the absolute shitshow that will go down at this dinner. And needless to say, this follows the garment-rending traditions of the classics.

Thoroughly satisfying slice of Russian misery. Raw with emotion, a bitter portrait of class.