The 2022 Jewish International Film Festival returns nationwide with a blockbuster programme announcement

Returning for its 30th anniversary year, the Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF) is back for 2022 with a programme featuring the world’s biggest A-Listers as they bring to life the best of Jewish culture and stories for the big screen. The broad appeal season of thought-provoking features, awe-inspiring documentaries, and historical reflections is on-sale today offering screenings from 24th October – 7th December 2022, across Australia, including for the first time, Hobart & the Gold Coast.

The bumper 2022 season boasts 30 feature films, 20 documentaries, episodes from 2 TV series, plus 3 critically acclaimed short films from 21 different countries, and features an unprecedented 47 Australian Premieres, 1 World Premiere and 1 International Premiere.

Kicking off the season with an all-star Opening Night will be the Australian premiere of James Gray’s (Ad Astra) Cannes hit Armageddon Time starring Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong. Closing Night brings additional star power with Mayim Bialik’s (Big Bang Theory, Beaches) directorial debut As They Made Us, starring Dustin Hoffman and Candice Bergen.

On revealing today’s programme JIFF Artistic Director Eddie Tamir says, “There is an abundance of brilliant Jewish narratives on screen this year and we’ve had the absolute pleasure of watching many films and series to curate this special selection of engaging stories for Australian audiences; tales that will move you, make you laugh or stay with you long after you’ve left the cinema.

“This season represents the best of the best in Jewish voices while showcasing stories embedded in Jewish culture that speak to universal experience.”

The JIFF 2022 season will also feature a series of special events bringing to life the magic of the programme including special musical performances from Simon Starr and Anita Lester as they celebrate storytelling through song for Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen, mime performances commemorating Marcel Marceau for The Art of Silence, virtual Q&A screenings with the filmmakers and a live concert featuring iconic tunes performed in Yiddish to celebrate 150 years of Yiddish musicals.

JEWISH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2022 DATES & VENUES

Melbourne – Classic Cinemas and Lido Cinemas – 24 October – 27 November

Sydney – Ritz Cinemas and Roseville Cinemas – 25 October – 28 November

Canberra – Dendy Cinemas – 27 October – 6 November

Hobart – State Cinema – 27 October – 6 November – NEW FOR 2022!

Brisbane – New Farm Cinemas – 10 – 20 November

Gold Coast – Dendy Southport – 17 – 27 November – NEW FOR 2022!

Perth – Luna Palace Leederville – 24 November – 7 December

KEY PROGRAMME THEMES & HIGHLIGHTS

HEADLINERS

JIFF 2022’s headliner films offer a unique opportunity to explore must-see titles from across the globe.

Charlotte Gainsbourg stars in French drama The Accusation, offering a timely exploration of the intersections of classic, sex, truth and consent.
Narrated by Jeff Goldblum and rated 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen captures the humour and drama of director Norman Jewison’s quest to recreate the lost world of Jewish life in Tsarist Russia and re-envision the beloved stage hit as a wide-screen epic.
The poignant wisdom and barbed humour of Karaoke saw the film nominated for 13 Ophir Awards and won the Audience Award and Best First Film Award at Jerusalem Film Festival.
Award-winning filmmaker Roberta Grossman’s (Who Will Write Our History) Reckonings recounts the tense negotiations between Jewish and German leaders that resulted in the 1952 Luxembourg Agreement.
March 1968 presents a heady convergence of romance, history and politics in a rarely told story of antisemitism in 1960s communist Poland.
Feel-good French comedy Rose follows a widow as she discovers the expansiveness of life’s possibilities.
The Auschwitz Report delivers the astonishing true story of the Vrba-Wetzler report as two Slovakian Jews risk their lives to bear witness to the horrors of Auschwitz.
Where Life Begins chronicles the relationship between etrog (citron) farmer Elio and the intense and quick-tempered rabbi’s daughter Esther, who is trapped between affection for her family and the desire to emancipate herself from her Orthodox life.

NEW ISRAELI CINEMA

At the forefront of the best new Israeli cinema JIFF presents a selection of groundbreaking new voices and talents.

From the director of The Cakemaker comes America, a bright yet psychologically complex and thought-provoking story about relationships that snared Oshrat Ingedashet Best Actress Prize at the 2022 Jerusalem Film Festival.
From award-winning Israeli director Rama Burshtein-Shai comes award winning series Fire Dance following 18-year-old Feigi who attaches her future happiness to Nathan, the 35-year-old married son of the leader of the ultra-orthodox Jewish community in which they both live.
June Zero a distinctive look at the events preceding the infamous Adolf Eichmann’s execution told in a triptych.
A wonderfully wicked ensemble piece, Perfect Strangers is the directorial debut of beloved Israeli actor Lior Ashkenazi (who stars in JIFF 2022 film Karaoke).

STARS ON SCREEN

JIFF’s 2022 season delivers star power from the world’s most renowned creatives including comedians, writers and filmmakers, and examination the stories of some of the most revered artists.

The Art of Silence the first ever feature documentary about mime Marcel Marceau, director Maurizius Staerkle Drux portrays the performer behind the painted mask as a deeply complex, sensitive and compassionate man.
Composed of images taken by the acclaimed photo-journalist Micha Bar-Am over more than fifty years, 1341 Frames of Love and War reveals the enormous price that comes along with documenting wars.
German cult-actor Udo Kier stars in My Neighbor Adolf, a charming comedy about finding friends in the unlikeliest of places.
In Grossman, a tender and insightful portrait of Israeli author David Grossman and his work at the nexus of art and life.
The Last Chapter of A.B.Yehoshua offers a rare and fascinating look at one of Israel’s most beloved writers, who passed away in June 2022.
Based on the autobiographical novel by Israeli author and cartoonist Michel Kichka, My Father’s Secrets is an intimate, funny and thought-provoking animated documentary voiced by the incomparable Elliott Gould and Miriam Margolyes.

COMEDIES

Light-hearted escapism and laughs abound in the JIFF 2022 program with a selection of the best Jewish comedies from the romantic to the satirical.

Stay With Us from acclaimed comedian Gad Elmaleh (Huge in France, American Dream) is a hilarious and heart-warming autobiographical comedy about acceptance, and the importance of family.
iMordecai is a heart-warming and life-affirming film based on a true story, starring Academy Award-nominated and two-time Emmy-winning actor Judd Hirsch as a Polish Holocaust survivor who now lives in Miami.
A classic love triangle romantic comedy, Bloody Murray will have viewers laughing with 30-something best friends and roommates Murray, a film lecturer specialising in romantic comedies, and Dana, a gynaecologist.
Offering a clever take on social appropriation and historical guilt, Love & Mazel Tov is a witty, warm-hearted look at modern love.
A rare retro film from beloved satirist Ephraim Kishon which was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Golden Globe, The Big Dig is a slapstick comedy lampooning bureaucracy and the madness of everyday life in Israel.

CHALLENGING THE NARRATIVE

A collection of thought-provoking and conversation-starting films that challenge contemporary attempts to rewrite history.

Galvanising documentary J’Accuse, follows the experiences of two dissident campaigners who push against Lithuania’s systemic Holocaust denial in an attempt to bring justice to victims and the truth to account.
Innovatively exploring the Latvian Holocaust, To Never Forget is a ground-breaking film project that follows the challenging process of bringing Sorella’s Story, a 360° virtual reality film, to fruition.
The Partisan With the Leica Camera unravels hidden secrets when 65-year-old Simon discovers that his father, the photographer Mundek Lukawiecki, and his mother, the housewife Hannah Bern, were the commanders of a Polish partisan squad that operated during the Holocaust. Features Maurie Hoffman, one of the last surviving members of the squad, and current resident of Melbourne, Australia.
The personal and the political are dangerously combined in Isaac, a tense and noir-like reckoning about the lingering psychic trauma of totalitarian savagery and unresolved Holocaust guilt.
Director Wojciech Smarzowski has earned a reputation for tackling social problems and issues of Polish identity through his work, cementing himself as a key figure in Polish cinema. In his latest film The Wedding Day, winner of Best Film and Best Director at the Polish Film Awards, Smarzowski uses the celebration of a wedding for a lashing and rambunctious social critique.