UK Jewish Film Festival

UKJFF 2023: Vishniac ★★★★★

UKJFF 2023: Vishniac ★★★★★

In Berlin in 1933, seven-year-old Mara stands outside a shop once owned by a Jew. Now it sells instruments to gauge the shape of a skull, issuing certificates of 'Aryanism' if deemed appropriate. The photographer recording this moment was also a Jew; if apprehended by Nazi forces…

UKJFF 2023: Less Than Kosher ★★★

UKJFF 2023: Less Than Kosher ★★★

Daniel AM Rosenberg’s musical comedy Less Than Kosher follows self-proclaimed “bad Jew” Viv, a washed-up singer at 30. She finds herself deliriously hungover after Yom Kippur, but after a trip to her family’s synagogue manages to fall “ass-first” into a job as a substitute cantor. What…

UKJFF 2023: Queen of the Deuce ★★★★

UKJFF 2023: Queen of the Deuce ★★★★

When someone speaks of the American Dream, the image is usually of a well-to-do white-collared individual returning to their picket-fenced home where a doting spouse tends to two pristine children. Not, heaven forbid, a chain-smoking elderly Greek Jewish immigrant holding court with…

UKJFF 2022: Cinema Sabaya ★★★★

UKJFF 2022: Cinema Sabaya ★★★★

Watching Orit Fouks Rotem’s uplifting Cinema Sabaya in the week in which Israel elected Benjamin Netanyahu back into power – with the help of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s extreme far-right party – was a bittersweet experience. The film takes place in the working-class city of Hadera in northern…

UKJFF 2022: Reckonings ★★★★

UKJFF 2022: Reckonings ★★★★

This year is the 70th anniversary of the signing in 1952 of the hugely significant but little-remembered Luxembourg Agreements between Israel and Germany. To mark the anniversary, this hard-hitting yet even-handed – and deeply compelling – documentary provides vivid insights into…

UKJFF 2021: Sin La Habana ★★★★

UKJFF 2021: Sin La Habana ★★★★

This moving romantic drama about a struggling Cuban ballet dancer, who crosses paths with an Iranian-Canadian Jewish woman looking for love, brings the 25th UK Jewish Film Festival to a vibrant close this week. Sin La Habana screens online and in person at London's Picturehouse…