Shalom Oida! JFW25 - Jewish Film Festival Vienna 2025
JFW, March 2025
German Original: https://www.jfw.at/presskit
From March 11 to March 25, 2025 at Village Cinema Wien Mitte and Metro Kinokulturhaus (Vienna, Austria)
www.facebook.com/ViennaJewishFilmFestival
www.instagram.com/juedisches.filmfestival.wien
The Jewish Film Week is a festival of diversity for everyone who wants to broaden their horizons, is interested in background information or simply loves high-quality films.
Around 50 current feature, documentary and short films will be presented at the 33rd JFW this year; most of them are Austrian or European premieres. This time, the focus is on the diversity of Judaism, ranging from ultra-Orthodox to secular, but also on the effects of the worldwide increase in anti-Semitism and the war in the Middle East. Female filmmakers are strongly represented; around twenty productions come from women who, in their work, sometimes devote themselves to decidedly female life plans.
About half of the productions shown come from Israel. On the one hand, they deal with the specific political and social conditions in the country, but they also address global issues such as flight and emigration, being an outsider, the effects of war and constant threat on everyday life, peace activities, the power of religious fundamentalist communities and, last but not least, the most diverse types of relationships and families – including in the LGBTIQA+ area.
In addition, sophisticated comedies and films that combine challenging topics with subtle humor are a fixture of the program. The Shoah is addressed in several productions, as is the global shift to the right.
Films such as “Saving the Children” about the little-known rescue operation carried out by courageous citizens of the town of Le Chambon, or “The Story of Anette Zelman”, a true story about a young woman who was denounced by her boyfriend's father, commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps.
Tanya Gersh, a naive Jewish American woman working as a real estate agent in a small town in Montana, had to learn the hard way what right-wing extremism means. A media hoax accusing her of conspiring against the mother of a neo-Nazi in her neighborhood led to two and a half years of public anti-Semitic terror against her by “Proud Boys” and other right-wing extremists who declared their support for Donald Trump.
The documentary “Troll Storm” not only describes these frightening events, but also reveals the roots of Trump's success, among other things.
With “Running on Sand”, director Adar Shafran manages to combine migration and racism with situation comedy without losing the thematic seriousness. Shortly before his deportation, a refugee from Eritrea is mistaken for a star footballer and plays along – without having the slightest idea of football. “The Vanishing Soldier” on the other hand is about an 18-year-old Israeli who, instead of continuing to fight in Gaza, secretly travels to his girlfriend in Tel Aviv, causing a nationwide stir because he is thought to have been kidnapped. In “Bliss” Sasson Gabai and Assi Levy play an older couple who, despite their problems, have retained their love and sense of humor.
The extent to which ultra-orthodoxy interferes with people's lives or even destroys them when it comes to sect-like communities is portrayed particularly drastically in the documentary “In the Name of the Father”. It deals with the victims of the cult surrounding the Israeli-American Hasidic Rabbi Eliezer Shlomo Shick.
A completely different way of being religious is shown in “Sabbath Queen”, the portrait of the pious, unconventional and queer Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, who founded the open-to-all Shul/Lab synagogue in NYC. “Matchmaking 2” is the sequel to the Israeli box office hit of the same name. Set in an ultra-Orthodox environment, it is a delightful comedy about the complicated search for true love.
In the Hungarian comedy, “All About the Levkoviches”, the opening film of JFW 25, a son who has become Orthodox meets his secular father again for the first time after years of estrangement. The little grandson and self-assembly furniture play an important role in the mutual rapprochement, which is full of obstacles.
At the festival opening, French sociologist Michel Wieviorka will speak about the topic “Combating anti-Semitism among young teachers and students”.
https://www.hamburger-edition.de/autorinnen-autoren/detailseite/person/michel-wieviorka/
The film program is complemented by panel discussions on the topics of “Diversity in Judaism” and “Jewish Life in Vienna”, a public discussion on the situation in Gaza, talks with filmmakers and an appearance by the entertainer Lea Kalisch, known as “Rebbetzin Lea” , who combines Yiddish, tango, girl power and sensuality in her debut film “Un Tango Para Rachel” and in her performance.
