Published: 12 November 2016
Last updated: 4 March 2024
This year’s line-up includes winners of a host of international awards across virtually all cinematic and documentary genres.
Tamir has a long association with the festival, now in its 26th year, and has had a passion for cinema for as long as he can remember. This led him to do a post-graduate film degree at Swinburne University in Melbourne after studying acting in Manhattan. He then worked as a producer on the TV series RAW FM as well as on some documentaries.
Fierce competition for content
Now in his fifth year running the festival, Tamir said the festival circuit is becoming increasingly competitive and acquiring the best content for premiere screenings locally is becoming more of a challenge. “We have limited resources and there are now 48 annual film festivals in Australia. If we want to snag a great French film with Jewish content, for example, we have potentially to compete commercially with a number of other festivals. This means lots of meetings with producers and publicists. It’s a business but it’s also a labour of love.”
Tamir watched about 300 films and documentaries before deciding on the final 68 for this year’s festival. “We go to film festivals, to Cannes, we get stuff sent to us. There’s a lot of great content out there.”
Compelling Jewish stories
When sourcing content, Tamir said the final decisions always have the audience in mind but that the films and docos also need to tell a distinctly Jewish story. “In America, they have three categories – Jewish, Israeli, and The Other Israeli films, a festival that focuses on minorities within Israel. We don’t separate material into those categories; our aim is to give as comprehensive a window into the Jewish experience as possible.”
With regard to Israeli films, the festival organisers take the view that Israel is at the coal face of Jewish history and the definition of what constitutes being Jewish is in some ways broader. “Sand Storm, for example, is a Bedouin story but it actively investigates the connection between that community and the Israeli government and was made by a first-time female Jewish director, so it definitely fitted our originality criteria. Apart from that it’s a brilliant film.”
Sand Storm won Best Film and Best Director at the recent 2016 Ophir Awards (Israeli Academy Awards), which automatically qualifies it to be Israel’s submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2017 Academy Awards. It also marks the first time that a film shot entirely in Arabic will represent Israel.
As for gaining a wider audience outside the Jewish community, Tamir said exact numbers were difficult to quantify, but he was confident that the range of quality content on offer would appeal to all cinema lovers. “We’ve got films loved by critics, populist schmaltzy films, and hard-hitting political documentaries,” he said. “We’ve got the winner of the German Oscar for best film, an Arthur Miller documentary, and a TV series called The Hebrews, which looks at the characters that have contributed to the evolution of the Hebrew language, so there are many highlights.”
Thought-provoking Holocaust content
The Holocaust is an understandably sensitive subject that usually features prominently at Jewish film festivals, and both opening and closing night films this year are dedicated to it.
Denial, which opened the festival, is a gripping drama based on an historic courtroom battle. The film stars Oscar winner Rachel Weisz as Professor Deborah Lipstadt, sued for defamation by historian author David Irving (Timothy Spall), whom she had referred to as a ‘denier’ in her book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. Aided by a first-class legal team led by brilliant barrister Richard Rampton, (Tom Wilkinson), Lipstadt managed to establish that Irving had not handled Holocaust evidence and sources as a reputable historian ought to, thus discrediting Irving and defeating his claim.
The Last Laugh, which closes the festival, is a highly provocative documentary directed by Fearne Pearlstein. It examines the role of comedy and asks just how far it should go when delving into tragedy, while at the same time acknowledging that comedy can play a cathartic and ultimately healing role. It features performances from comedic titans such as Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Sarah Silverman, and the late Joan Rivers, along with survivors including 91-year-old Renee Firestone, who spent time in Auschwitz.
Tamir said it is important to tell Holocaust stories that continue to challenge viewers. “In addition to the opening and closing night films, which are both exceptional, there’s The People versus Fritz Bauer, an amazing story about a man many have never heard of who was instrumental in the capture of Adolf Eichmann, there’s a brilliant new version of The Diary of Anne Frank that I saw in Berlin, and there’s an extremely powerful documentary about Jan Karski, the Polish diplomat whose heroism first brought German atrocities in Poland to the attention of the Allies.”
The 2016 Jewish International Film Festival runs until November 23 in Sydney and Melbourne, and until November 20 in Canberra, Auckland and Brisbane. For tickets, venues, and session times see jiff.com.au
This The Jewish Independent article may be republished if acknowledged thus: ‘Reprinted with permission from www.thejewishindependent.com.au ’
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