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…
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…
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.…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…