The artistic director of next week’s Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF) has re-emphasised the importance of the event amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, describing film festivals as “joy and a jewel in our multicultural society”.
Running October 23 to December 6, JIFF comprises 30 feature films, 20 documentaries, two series, and six short films alongside a suite of live events, which will be held across Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart and Gold Coast.
The event comes as fighting escalates in the Gaza Strip, with Israel preparing to launch a ground invasion of the region, following the surprise attack from Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7.
In Australia, thousands have attended pro-Palestine rallies across the country, including in Sydney, where one man was charged with using offensive language during the demonstration.
Last Wednesday, Palestinian Film Festival (PFF) organiser Naser Shakhtour announced he was postponing the event in the wake of the conflict, instead directing audiences two documentaries – Andy Trimlett and Ahlam Muhtaseb’s 1948: Creation & Catastrophe and Garry Keane and Andrew McConnell’s Gaza – on its website.
Speaking in relation to JIFF, Eddie Tamir, who is also the proprietor of Sydney’s Ritz Cinemas and Melbourne’s Lido, Classic and Cameo cinemas, said the festival would go ahead as planned because they “believe that sharing stories in film festivals is an important thing to be doing”.
“We think it would be inappropriate to be changing any plans because of terrorist activity and brutal massacres; it’s no reason to stop living and choosing life,” he said.
“Film festivals are a joy and a jewel in our multicultural society. Ten years ago there were two. Now there are more than 50. They reinforce a culture’s sense of itself to its members and fosters understanding in the general community. That is a beautiful thing and a great thing about film festivals in Australia.”
The JIFF line-up includes the Australian premiere of Israeli film Matchmaking from director Erez Tadmor, as well as Australian documentaries, Revenge: Our Dad the Nazi Killer, The Jewish Nazi? , and I’ll Be Frank.
As with previous years, there are films, such as Kilian Riedhof’s Stella. A Life. – a deep dive into the tumultuous and controversial life of Stella Goldschlag – that are set around the events of World War II.
Tamir said although “it has got to be one of the saddest things” that there is a Holocaust genre of films, JIFF did not shy away from them, noting it was the “choice of the filmmaker” to make a project from that era.
“We’re often asked why these films keep getting made because people think they have seen enough of them,” he said.
“In terms of why, there’s obviously the basic thing of trying to teach the world what can happen anywhere, anytime, and how we need to be vigilant.
“I guess what’s interesting – from a Jewish perspective and beyond – is clearly these stories tap to the deepest fears of abandonment and try obviously to make sense of it and move toward a positive light if it’s possible.”
He added what happened in Israel on October 7 “pressed all the emergency buttons like trauma deep in the Jewish DNA”.
“Jewishly, it connects to not only the Holocaust but other stories of persecution in Jewish history,” he said.
“I think also just for the general community and non-Jewish community, Holocaust films as a genre relate to every human being and I think its always been an important genre, perhaps even more so today.”
Find out more information about JIFF here.