VIENNA JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL
NOVEMBER 12 – 19, 2008

>> Deutsche Version

Starting in 1991, we called our event Jewish Film Days. Over the years, it became the Jewish Film Week, soon followed by the Jewish Film Weeks. In 2007 we named our event Vienna Jewish Festival, which lasted two weeks. This year – keyword “crises” – we reduced our program to some events. In 2010, the Vienna Jewish Film Festival will be held in an adequate time frame.

PROGRAM VOTIVKINO

In cooperation with Filmladen, the opening takes place on November 12, 2009, at Votivkino (invitation only) featuring Berlin 36 (Regie: Kaspar Heidelbach, D 2009), which is based on a true story. The United States threatens to boycott the Olympic Games 1936 in Berlin if host Germany does not include any Jewish athletes in its national team. Bowing under pressure, the Nazi government opens a spot for the Jewish girl Gretel, an extraordinary high jumper. But to prevent her from winning, Berlin picks an unknown woman to compete against her.
Invited guests: Ambassadors Tal Adler and Osama Zatar, actor Otto Tausig and director Kaspar Heidelbach. Moderation: Jérôme Segal (historian at The Interdisciplinary Centre for Comparative Research in the Social Sciences, Vienna Jewish Film Festival) and Johann Skocek (journalist). The film is also shown in a regular screening on Saturday, November 14, 2009, at the Votivkino (9 pm).

From November 13 until 15, 2009, recent productions are presented, among them feature film Ajami (D/IL 2009), which depicts a multi-ethnic community in Jaffa's Ajami neighbourhood. The two filmmakers, Palestinian Scandar Copti and Israeli Yaron Shani, took months auditioning locals, many of whom are from Ajami.
In Haim Tabakman’s impressive film Ejnaim pekuchot/Eyes Wide Open (IL/D/F 2009), Aaron, a respectable butcher in the Ultra Orthodox Jewish community of Jerusalem, falls in love with a handsome Yeshiva student and slowly starts to neglect his family and community life. The film is screened together with Chote/Sinner (Regie: Meni Philip, IL 2009), where a thirteen-year old boy, who is studying at an ultra-orthodox Jewish boarding school, is abused by his rabbi. Introduction: Jérôme Segal (historian at The Interdisciplinary Centre for Comparative Research in the Social Sciences, Vienna Jewish Film Festival). Daniel Burman’s El Nido Vacío/Empty Nest (RA 2009) deals with the “Empty-Nest-Syndrome”: the moment when the grown up children leave their homes and their parents have to face a new situation. In her fascinating documentary film Killing Kasztner (USA/IL 2008), director Gaylen Ross follows the story of Israel Kasztner. During World War II, he negotiated directly with Adolf Eichmann to save the lives of Hungarian Jews. In Israel, many of his new countrymen accused Kasztner of collaborating with the enemy and he was assassinated in Tel Aviv in 1957. Introduction: Eleonore Lappin-Eppel (historian, Institute for the History of Jews in Austria) and Renate Meissner (ethnologist, National Fund of the Republic of Austria). In Mary & Max (AUS 2009), filmmaker Adam Elliot tells the story of a 20-year pen-pal friendship between two very different people: Mary Daisy Dinkle, a chubby, lonely 8-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max Jerry Horowitz, a 44-year-old Jewish man, who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, and lives an isolated life in New York City. In the comedy Simon Konianski (Regie: Micha Wald, B 2009), Simon fulfils his dead father's last request: to bury him in the village where he was born, in the depths of Ukraine. And so Simon finds himself caught up in an event-packed road movie in the company of his paranoid old uncle, his aunt who nags him endlessly about his "Goy dancer", his six-years-old son, his father's body and his ghost, and also a rabbit.

PROGRAM METRO KINO

On November 16, 2009, Caroline Koczan presents in her musical Hello Malkele, in German, English and Yiddish the life of Jewish singer, actress and comedian Molly “Malkele” Picon (1898 – 1992). Born as Małka (Margaret) Opiekun in New York City, she began her career at the age of six and became first and foremost a star in Yiddish theatre and films. As Yiddish theatre faded she began to perform in English-language productions.

In cooperation with fran:cultures, Kalat Ha-jam/Jaffa/Bride of the Sea (Keren Yedaya, D/IL/F 2009) is presented with a discussion on November 18, 2009. Moderation: Michel Cullin (Diplomatic Academy of Vienna). Mali, a young Jewish woman of Jaffa falls in love with a young Palestinian man and both plan to run off to get married. The situation changes dramatically, when Mali finds out that she is pregnant.

On November 19, 2009, author and director Werner Kofler presents his film Im Museum (Durch die Geschichte; A 1993), a documentary film about an imaginary museum of German history. The film is screened together with Nuit et brouillard/Nacht und Nebel/Night And Fog (Alain Resnais, F 1955/1956), which was made ten years after the liberation of Nazi concentration camps in collaboration with two survivors of the Holocaust, writer Jean Cayrol and composer Hanns Eisler.
Moderation: Albert Müller (Department of Contemporary History, University Vienna)

The team of the Vienna Jewish Film Festival wishes you interesting, touching and enriching moments.

(Date: October 23, 2009, subject to change)