Guest: Regisseur Jochen Alexander Freydank

Director Jochen Alexander Freydank was awarded an Oscar for best short film this year in Los Angeles.

"In barely fourteen minutes, SPIELZEUGLAND tells a story so powerful that it could easily fill an entire feature-length film. It treads lightly and has the certainty of a dream, almost never straying beyond the thin grey line of protective normality. But isn't all normality a dream? And yet the film is about one of the murderous stories there is. The man on the step is called Silberstein (impressively played by a rarely smiling, introspective Torsten Michaelis). His son's name is David. Both wear a yellow star" Kerstin Decker

Guests: Regisseur Mark Herman und Autor John Boyne

Many years ago, I made a film about a village in Baden-Wurttemberg in which Jews and Christians had lived side by side in peace for more than 300 years.
The name of the village was Buttenhausen. That peace was of course shattered in 1933, and the Christians crossed over to the other side of the road whenever they saw their Jewish neighbours coming towards them. In 1938, the small stone synagogue was set alight, and eventually the deportations began. Jewish men and women were forced to board a large grey bus “for transportation to the east”. Their furniture, silver and dowries were stolen by their Christian neighbours who knew that the Jews “would be shot” and therefore wouldn’t need their dowries anymore. In 1943, the last remaining Jewish couple in the village took their own lives rather than being deported. The gravestone on the small Jewish cemetery shows how old they were: both were nearly 80. It was at this cemetery that I met a farmer scrubbing the letters on the weather-beaten stones with a toothbrush. He told me – and not only me, but all the villagers, whether they wanted to hear it or not – the story of the Jews of Buttenhausen. He organised an exhibition to tell the story of their lives and their deaths, showing their photographs, documents and first-hand reports.
This farmer had a daughter, and she had a Turkish friend. The two girls went out clubbing on Saturday nights. I accompanied them and asked the farmer’s daughter whether she could imagine being a Jew in Buttenhausen. No, she said, she could not picture that because she wasn’t Jewish. Sure, I replied, but couldn’t she even imagine it? No, she said, because she wasn’t a Jew. I looked at her Turkish friend and then asked the farmer’s daughter if she could imagine being Turkish. No, she said with a smile, because she wasn’t Turkish. So I didn’t ask whether she could imagine living in Buttenhausen back then and having to get on the large grey bus “for transportation to the east”. She had seen all the photos, the documents, the gravestones, even those of the old Jewish couple. How was it possible that she had no imagination and couldn’t picture being on the losing side, always on the side of the winners, the blond, blue-eyed? Why couldn’t she imagine what it must have been like to be on the wrong side? If The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas had existed back then, I would have forced the farmer’s daughter and her friend to go and see it. Once, just once, you have to understand that you could just as easily have been on the wrong side. Bruno, the son of the SS commandant, can. He reaches out to Schmuel, dies with him. Our world would be a very different place if we could imagine that – every day, forever. Go see the film. Die with Bruno.
Lea Rosh Translated by Jan Liebelt

A young woman on her way to meet a blind date runs into a man without a cell phone who changes the course of her life forever, or at least for the following hour. A secular cell-phone comedy by Israeli filmmaker Gur Bentwich.

Guest: Stefan C. Schaefer, New York

An unlikely friendship develops between two young schoolteachers, one an Orthodox Jew, the other a Muslim, as they go through the process of arranged marriages together. This little “indie” film is a gem, blessed with winning performances by lead actresses Zoe Lister-Jones and Francis Benhamou.

Guest: Ruth Diskin, Jerusalem

Director Yishai Orian’s wife, pregnant with their first child, insists he scrap his beloved Volkswagen Beetle for a safe family car. Yishai’s comic struggles to save his Beetle lead to fascinating conversations with the car’s former owners and a colorful trip to Jordan.

Guest: Cindy Kleine, London

Filmmaker Ken Burns (“Jazz”) calls Cindy Kleine’s frank and fearless chronicle of her parents’ disastrous 59 year marriage “a masterpiece.” Drawing on a lifetime of family home movies, Kleine uncovers family secrets and tells a story that could not be shown publicly while her father was still alive.

Monika Hertwig was left a monstrous legacy. Her father was Nazi war criminal Amon Goeth, the notoriously sadistic commandant of the Plaszow Concentration Camp. Monika’s ongoing struggle with her inheritance leads to an unforgettable meeting with Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, a Holocaust survivor whom Goeth enslaved in his villa at the Camp for two years.

Opening: Peter Stephan Jungk, Paris

A Parisian ministry official in his forties comes across a set of documents revealing his maternal grandparents were Jews deported from France. While the Grande Nation is tuned in to live television and radio broadcasts of the trial against Klaus Barbie, in May 1987, from the courtroom in Lyon, Victor Gornick realizes that his mother never told him the truth. He decides to confront her, making several attempts to talk to her regarding his discovery. Victor fails – but he has no premonition that his mother will live only a few weeks longer, so eventually he gives up. ... Peter Stephan Jungk

Guest: Regisseur Nadav Shirman

The story is astounding, but it’s true. In the 60’s, an Israeli Secret Service (Mossad) agent posing as a rich German horse breeder infiltrated Egyptian high society and spied on German scientists working with Egypt to develop weapons against Israel. His son talks, for the first time, about his father’s double life and the price his family paid.

THE CHAMPAGNE SPY won  the Israeli Academy Award for Best Documentary 2007 and has been shown at many International Film Festivals.

Guests: Regisseurin Karin Albou und Peter Stephan Jungk, Paris

So much beauty. So much sadness. Through a hammam’s fine mist we are shown the bodies of naked women, resembling sculptures. Myriam and Nour are inseparable friends since early childhood; one is Jewish, the other Muslim. They grew up in the same building, in Tunis, played in the same courtyard. They’re both sixteen now. Myriam lives with her mother, Tita, her father died early. Nour is engaged to Khaled, but the wedding is postponed - the attractive young man must first find himself a job. In 1942, World War II. reaches Tunisia, a French colony back then. Over night, the laws of the pro-Nazi Vichy government are installed. Jews are systematically persecuted, radio and news- papers spread anti-Semitic propaganda. Flyers reassure the Arab population: ‘We are your friends!’ Tunisian Jews are only allowed to remain residents if they pay a huge fine. Tita can’t even afford to go to the hammam any longer, who should she turn to for the huge demanded sum? There’s only one way out: offering Myriam to the wealthy doctor Raoul in matrimony. He is kind, yet almost forty - the young bride is disgusted, doesn’t ever want to touch him. It’s quite amazing to watch Lizzie Brocheré’s portrayal of Myriam: She not only plays her role, she lives it. Rarely does one look into eyes like these in cinema. ... Peter Stephan Jungk

In 1949 in Kazakhstan, a Muslim railroad worker rescues a Jewish boy he finds in a railway car, a victim of Stalin’s ethnic deportations. Panoramas of the Kazakh steppes dazzle the eyes as the story of a boy who grows up dreaming of a reunion with his parents touches the heart.

Awkward Jewish boy Danny Stein desperately seeks a sexy high school prom date, overlooking his best friend Camille, a nice, smart, Jewish girl. Set in God’s Waiting Room, a.k.a. Florida, this semi-autobiographical, coming of age comedy stars Steven Kaplan and William H. Macy and marks an auspicious debut for first-time feature film director Brian Hecker.

Director Alexander Gentelev emigrated from Russia to Israel in the early 1990s. Years later, he sets out to find his fellow airline passengers and get to the heart of the Russian immigrant experience in all its vital complexity. With great humor, wit, and intelligence, he succeeds.

The question of Jewish identity is given a rigorous workout in this delightful French comedy starring Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant as a Jewish couple who immigrate to Israel. Israeli actors Lior Ashkenazi (Walk on Water) and Sasson Gabai (The Band’s Visit) co-star.

Guest: Produzent Mark Redhead

Facing a selection for hard labor or the gas chamber, a group of Auschwitz prisoners convene a rabbinical court and put God on trial for breaking His covenant with the Jews. The script by celebrated screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce and the performances by Antony Sher, Rupert Graves, Stellan Skarsgard, and Stephen Dillane are stellar.

Guest: Nina F. Grünfeld, Oslo

Nina F. Grünfeld paints an exquisite family portrait in this intimate documentary about the last months of the life of her father, the important Norwegian psychiatrist Berthold Grünfeld. The Dying Doctor follows up her 2005 film Origin Unknown (JFFB 2007) that traces her and her father’s search for information about the mother he never knew.

Opening: Igal Avidan, Berlin

It may not be the main intent of this lovely film, but director and screenwriter Eitan Green plays against stereotypes and expectations. Here, it’s the Mediterranean, calm and inviting, not Hamas, that proves dangerous, when a strong current carries a father, mother, and their 6-year-old son out to sea on an air mattress, and the boy almost drowns. In It All Begins at Sea, subtitled 3 Childhood Scenes and Death, the undertow runs swift and deep under normal, everyday life. ...

Guest: Matti Harari, Tel Aviv

Paula’s growing obsession with her young Polish home care worker Valentina, whose name is the same as a beloved childhood friend, leads the elderly Israeli Holocaust survivor to confuse the past with the present. Ethel Kovinska as Paula and Sylvia Drori as Valentina give beautiful, haunting performances.

Popular French actors Gad Elmelah and Serge Berry star in this poignant drama about the struggles of an Israeli immigrant family to France in the 1970’s and a boy’s relationship with his loving but flawed father.

Guest: Produzent Willy Perelsztejn, Brüssel

From 1942 to 1944, 24,916 Jewish men, women, and children were deported from Belgium to Auschwitz. Only 1,206 survived. The documentary Modus Operandi raises and systematically answers the question: How did just a handful of Nazis, with the help, voluntary or unwitting, of the Belgian authorities, bring about their destruction?

Guests: Gaylen Ross, New York und Zsuzsi Kasztner (Tochter von I. Kasztner)

Dr. Israel (Rezso) Kasztner saved the lives of nearly 1700 Hungarian Jews by negotiating with Adolf Eichmann, but instead of being hailed as a hero, he was found guilty in an Israeli court of being a Nazi collaborator and later assassinated. Director Gaylen Ross’s powerful documentary re-opens the history books on this controversial case.

An eccentric Jewish academic, a smart Palestinian trash collector, and a sexy Italian nun work together to rebuild a flying wooden camel, the symbol of the 1934 Tel Aviv Eastern Fair. A call for mutual understanding and joint efforts to repair past damage, this high-flying classic Israeli comedy screens in honor of Tel Aviv’s 100th anniversary.

This film is only in German.

Israeli director Ari Folman’s animated documentary about his journey to uncover memories of being a soldier in Beirut in 1982 is an hallucinogenic and profound exploration of war and its aftermath. The film won the Golden Globe and César Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.

This film is only in German.