The 31st Jewish Film Festival Berlin Brandenburg – for more openness

How do you meet the events of October 7, 2023? With courage and a lot of will to dialogue. Right with the opening film, Daniel Robbins’ Family Comedy “Bad Shabbos”, the 31st Jewish Film Festival Berlin Brandenburg (JFBB) set a sign.

“Bad Shabbos” is a black -humorous comedy about the disposal of a body according to stabbar rules – and brings tradition, family and religion together. In the best Woody-Allen-style, Robbins set the tone for the festival: Even if we don’t always agree, we should listen to a solution together and across generations.

Past, present and future often go hand in hand. The writer William Faulkner already knew that: “The past is not dead, it has not even passed.” Faulkner’s statement is reflected in the program. Art Spiegelman, son of two survivors of the Ausschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, quotes Faulkner in his serious black and white comic “Mouse-the history of a survivor”. Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin’s documentary “Art Spiegelman: Disaster is my muse” devotes the life and work of this extraordinary man.

In »Maus« Spiegelman draws the stations of his father Vladek Spiegelman. The Jews are the mice in the Holocaust comic, the National Socialists cats. Spiegelman deals with trauma, guilt and memory, says the unspeakable. In January 2022, “Maus” in Tennessee was banned from the curriculum from the curriculum due to the “inappropriate language” contained therein (because of words such as “damn” or “bitch” in the comic) and because of the representation of nudity, violence and suicide (Spiegelman). In an interview, Spiegelman commented: “They are disturbing pictures”, but “do you know what? It is a disturbing story. ”The comic himself addresses censorship, propaganda or the risk of forgetting. By banned, “Mouse” in the US bestseller list was 1st place-Bernstein and Dolin received the funding for the film.

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In the documentary “The Governor”, director Danel Elpeleg traces her grandfather, who worked as a military governor after the founding of Israel, reports on bureaucratic violence. Since the events of October 7, voices in Israel have been loud to reintroduce the military regime. The film is more up -to -date than ever.

October 7, curatorially, ran through the program. There is, for example, Tom Shoval’s documentary »Michtav Le’David. A Letter to David «or the” Holding Liat “(directed by Brandon Kramer), which was awarded the Gershon Klein-documentary award, both of which deal with the fate of hostages of Hamas. Dani Rosenberg’s feature film “of Dogs and Men”, who received the Gershon Klein feature film award, in turn addresses loss and humanity in the shadow of October 7 and the war. There were also free discussions and panels in the focus on October 7th. They were not recorded, took place in the protected framework.

With almost 60 game and documentary films, the JFBB also reflected the variety of Jewish film this year. With “Guns & Moses” Salvador Litvak even presented a Rabbi western and Joe Stephenson with “Midas Man” a biopic about the Beatles manager Brian Epstein. The first film of a Bedouin director produced in Israel was also shown: Yousef Abo Madegem’s political drama »Eid«.

The festival made it clear how important votes are. A good example is ZVI Landsman’s documentary “Jacob de Haan-A Voice Out of Time” about the Dutch-Jewish journalists and activists Jacob Israël de Haan. Landsman portrays a personality that cannot be classified so quickly. Jacob de Haan, born in the Netherlands in 1881, published one of the first explicitly homosexual novels of the Netherlands with “Pijpelijnjes” in 1904. De Haan settled in Palestine in 1919. After his departure from Zionism, he became the political representative of the anti -Zionist ultra -orthodox community. On June 30, 1924, he was murdered by a member of the Zionist underground organization Haganah.

In addition to clarifying the De-Haan murder, the director mainly dealt with the questions about identity, how we design it and how we narrow down ourselves with attributions. De Haan got over it by reconciling himself again and again to stay true to himself. In contradictions, he looked for answers. “Jacob de Haan – A Voice Out of Time” won the prize for intercultural dialogue at the JFBB.

Anetta Kahane, who was once the first and only foreigner of the Magistrate of East Berlin, pleaded to meet complexity in a conversation about racism and anti-Semitism for more openness and the will. The JFBB continued this year with a good example.