Highlights include Cannes prize winners, locally made documentaries, and a seven-film Mel Brooks retrospective.
The Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF) returns from 18 October to 26 November 2026, bringing 52 new Jewish-themed films and documentaries from around the world to Australian screens, including a seven-film retrospective celebrating the centenary of comedian and director Mel Brooks.
Screening in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, the festival offers a Jewish voice to Australia’s rich multicultural tapestry and tells the story of Jewish life in Australia and abroad, spanning the personal and the political, the intimate and the epic.
“Mel Brooks wears his Jewishness as a badge of honour and celebrates it as the lens through which he views the world,” said JIFF Artistic Director Eddie Tamir. “His voice remains fresh and anti-establishment, satirising everything that should be questioned in society.
“This is particularly relevant at a time when Jewish representation in the arts faces challenges. In this new landscape, JIFF has a vital role in showcasing diverse Jewish voices in all their vibrancy. We welcome everyone to come and discover these voices at JIFF.”
Opening Night Film
The festival’s opening night film is Just an Illusion, the French box office smash starring screen icons Louis Garrel and Camille Cottin and directed by the filmmaking duo behind The Intouchables. This lively, crowd-pleasing comedy about identity, friendship, and growing up is soundtracked by the likes of The Cure and Imagination, and offers an authentic and deeply relatable look into Jewish family life.
Closing Night Film
JIFF’s Closing Night selection is James Gray’s gripping Paper Tiger, starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Miles Teller. Premiering to acclaim in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival, the film is both an electrifying portrait of a Jewish-American family in pursuit of the American dream, and a taut thriller about how aspiration can push well-meaning people into dangerous places.
2026 Festival Highlights
Fresh from winning Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay at the Ophir Awards, Tell Me Everything is a richly detailed Israeli family drama set amid the ‘80s pop frenzy follows a young boy’s journey to rekindle his relationship with the father he reveres after discovering that he is gay.
A Man of His Time, winner of Best Screenplay at Cannes, stars Anatomy of a Fall’s Swann Arlaud as Henri Marre, an over-ambitious Vichy administrator who is also director Emmanuel Marre’s own great-grandfather. Blending period accuracy with distinctly modern camerawork and anachronistic needle-drops, this slow-burn portrait of the banality of evil has drawn comparisons to Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest.
Also direct from Cannes, Women on Trial stars French icon Charlotte Gainsbourg as Gisèle Halimi, the Jewish lawyer at the centre of a landmark French abortion case. Told in an immaculately controlled, non-linear style, the film is a powerful portrait of an historic moment in the advancement of women’s rights.
Set in a shtetl in the heart of Jerusalem, The Wedding Entertainer is a comedic, modern-day caper starring Shuli Rand that follows a disgraced badhan (a traditional Jewish wedding emcee) as he fights to reclaim his former glory.
Think Good is a gripping marital thriller from French-Canadian director Géraldine Nakache about the quiet, psychological coercion that occurs within a marriage, and the abuse of religion as a means of control. Also direct from Cannes, the film is anchored by powerful performances from Monia Chokri and Nils Schneider.
JIFF shines a light on director Volker Schlöndorff, whose latest film Visitation is a century-spanning epic that observes three families that inhabit a lake house near Berlin, and the earth shattering events that shape the world around them. The festival will also screen The Tin Drum, Schlöndorff’s strikingly original anti-war film that follows a young boy in twentieth century Germany who refuses to grow up, and which won the Palme d’or and the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1979.
From the Berlinale, Where To? is a brilliant and acclaimed drama about an unlikely friendship between a Palestinian Uber driver and a young Israeli living in Berlin which offers a stark reminder of the importance of listening during times of deep division.
In the thrilling and lavishly produced WWII historical drama The Heroes of the Louvre, the night watchman of the Louvre and his family are recruited as part of a secret operation to rescue the renowned gallery’s famous artworks before they fall into Nazi hands.
Australian Stories
JIFF remains committed to spotlighting local stories and productions, with new documentaries and dramas that offer insight into the experiences of Jewish Australians and will inspire, provoke and enlighten.
Cancelled is a new documentary that observes key Jewish creatives including musician Deborah Conway, visual artist Nina Sanadze, writer Joshua Dabelstein and circus artist Talia Sofizade as they navigate the rise of antisemitism in Australia in the wake of October 7, a rapidly shifting cultural landscape that culminates in the Bondi Beach attack of December 2025.
Sixty years on from the historic 1965 Freedom Rides, a new generation of First Nations and Jewish students recreate the steps of the historic trip, serving as an important reminder of the unique allyship that exists between these communities.
Who Are We is a new Australian-made documentary which tells the story of the Melbourne Jewish community through the eyes of its only dedicated Australian Rules football team: the Ajax Football Club.
In Wish You Long Life, a timely and insightful drama from Melbourne-born filmmaker Gideon Heine, a young Jewish man must confront his fear of reconnecting with his culture as antisemitism becomes an increasingly visible reality in Australia.
Mel Brooks Retrospective
JIFF’s 2026 program include a seven-film salute to the comedian and director Mel Brooks, who celebrated his 100th birthday this year. Born Melvin James Kaminsky in 1926, Brooks harnessed his difficult and distinctly Jewish upbringing and turned it into fearless satire that defanged his enemies and made the world laugh, winning an EGOT along the way. JIFF screens timeless classics like Blazing Saddles and The Producers alongside rarely screened gems like The Twelve Chairs.
Documentaries
New documentaries highlight the lives of groundbreaking Jewish figures, from historical pioneers to major cultural icons still working still today.
Noga follows the outspoken alternative singer and rising star Noga Erez as she navigates her career, her relationship with partner Ori Rousso, and her political activism amidst the tragedy of October 7 and the war that follows. Pieced together with newly unearthed archival footage, animation and first-hand accounts, We Met at Grossinger’s is a nostalgic portrait of the iconic Catskills resort and the three generations of Jewish women who created it. Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls is a revealing documentary about the iconic folk balladeer Woody Guthrie that weaves an inextricable thread between the story of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl and American Yiddish art and culture.
Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny traces the life and work of the famed German-American philosopher using scholarly interviews, new archival materials and first-hand accounts from Arendt, brought to vivid life by acclaimed actress Nina Hoss. Spanning the 1930s, The Mad Dog of Europe reveals a remarkable unproduced screenplay by Oscar-winning Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (the subject of David Fincher’s Mank) which anticipated Hitler’s rise, and the myriad political and cultural reasons it was never produced.
Tickets for JIFF 2026 are now on sale at www.jiff.com.au.
JIFF 2026 DATES & VENUES:
MELBOURNE
Classic Cinemas, Elsternwick
Sun 18 Oct – Wed 25 Nov
Lido Cinemas, Hawthorn
Mon 19 Oct – Wed 25 Nov
SYDNEY
Ritz Cinemas, Randwick
Mon 19 Oct – Thu 26 Nov
Roseville Cinemas, Roseville
Thu 29 Oct – Wed 11 Nov
PERTH
Palace Cinemas, Raine Square
Thu 22 Oct – Wed 4 Nov
Stay up to date with JIFF:
Website: www.jiff.com.au
Facebook: www.facebook.com/JewishIFF
Instagram: www.instagram.com/jiff_oz/
