Jewish International Film Festival 2023
Taking over New Farm Cinemas, this year's JIFF features musicals, rom-coms and a documentary for 'Oppenheimer' fans.
Overview
If the Oppenheimer side of 2023's Barbenheimer phenomenon has you wanting to find out more about the atomic age, this year's Jewish International Film Festival has your next viewing option: documentary A Compassionate Spy about physicist Theodore Hall. His tale didn't make the cut in Christopher Nolan's blockbuster, but he was part of the Manhattan Project team at Los Alamos, and also passed intelligence to the Soviet Union, as Hoop Dreams' filmmaker Steve James explores in one of JIFF's must-see efforts at its latest fest.
When the Jewish International Film Festival returns for 2023, it'll hit up New Farm Cinemas from Thursday, November 16–Sunday, November 26. On the full nationwide lineup is a hefty 55 Australian-premiere titles spanning both flicks and TV shows — a selection of which is playing in Brisbane.
Israel's Matchmaking hits JIFF's opening night after success at home, following a Jewish Orthodox man's romantic ups and downs in a film that's been likened to Romeo and Juliet — but Haredi and a comedy. Also on the 2023 program: Jack L Warner: The Last Mogul, a documentary focusing on one of Warner Bros' titular founders; The Engineer, about the manhunt for bombmaker Yahya Ayyash, as starring Emile Hirsch (Devil's Workshop); and documentary Erica Jong – Breaking the Wall, about the Fear of Flying author.
The Brisbane bill also includes gangster comedy Hummus Full Trailer, musical Less Than Kosher, vino-fuelled doco Holy Wine and docudrama Munich '72 on its sizeable list.
And, as is JIFF's custom, the program features a large contingent of movies that examine World War II, the Holocaust and their lingering impact. Expect to find Stella Goldschlag biopic Stella. A Life; the vengeance-laden The Jew; the Ukraine-shot, Yiddish-language SHTTL; Filip, which tells a tale of romantic pleasures amid the war; Delegation, about students visiting Poland's Holocaust sites and confronting their Jewish identity; and closing night's The Jewish Nazi?, a doco with Australian ties.
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