Details of the 2011 UK Jewish Film Festival – 1-20 November 2011

Tuesday 1 November Odeon West End 7pm

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE  Premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival starring Sean Penn as an ageing rock star who decides to find his father’s tormentor, an ex-Nazi war criminal who’s living somewhere in the US. Paolo Sorrentino (‘Il Divo’) directs, stars include Frances McDormand, Judd Hirsch, and newcomer Eve Hewson.

Saturday 5 November Tricycle 7.30pm

FOOTNOTE  Best Screenplay Award/Cannes 2011. Tragicomic drama about a power struggle between a father and his son within the Talmud department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Sunday 6 November Tricycle 8.30pm

LIPSTIKKAAmidst the political turmoil of the first Intifada, two Palestinian teenage girls sneak into the Jewish part of Jerusalem to see a film but what begins as a youthful prank develops into a twisted set of events. Official Competition Berlin International Film Festival

Sunday 6 November Everyman Hampstead 8pm

MAHLER ON THE COUCH  Written and directed by German father and son team, Percy (Bagdad Cafe) and Felix Adlon, this is a witty examination of Gustav Mahler’s relationship with his tempestuous wife, Alma, and his search for advice from Sigmund Freud. Naturally features a top notch Mahler score.

Tuesday 8 November Odeon Swiss Cottage 7.30pm

THE DREAMERS  Two orthodox women break away from their closed society, rabbinical censorship and a cloistered existence...to make movies.

Tuesday 8 November Tricycle 7pm

MORDECHAI RICHLER – LAST OF THE WILD JEWSUnmissable documentary about Canadian Jewish author Mordechai Richler (1931-2001) whose angry, intellectual works formed part of a Jewish cultural explosion in the 20^th century. The UKJFF will screen The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974), an adaptation of Richler’s 1959 novel on 8 November at the Tricycle and Barney’s Version (2010) on 9 November at the Swiss Cottage Odeon.

Wednesday 9 November Tricycle 7pm

CRIME AFTER CRIME  A gripping documentary about the battle to free Deborah Peagler who spent 26 years in prison for her connection to the murder of the man who brutally abused her. Debbie’s story takes an unexpected turn when a pair of novice attorneys, (one of whom is an Orthodox Jew), decide to take up her case... and, in the process, cause a legal meltdown...

Thursday 10 November Tricycle 8.45pm

SALSA TEL AVIV  This highly entertaining musical romantic comedy was a big hit at the New York Israeli Film Festival; Vicky is a talented Mexican salsa dancer and single mother who decides to journey to Israel, disguised as a nun, to join her ex-husband. En route the disguised nun meets handsome, brainy, engaged Yoni...

Thursday 10 November Tricycle 7pm/Sunday 13 November Odeon Woodford 4.30pm

DAVID  Daud, a young religious Muslim boy befriends a group of Jewish boys who assume he’s one of them and a genuine bond of friendship is formed... until Daud’s true identity is discovered and his newly discovered world of freedom and camaraderie is shattered.

Saturday 12 November Tricycle 9.30pm

HOW TO RE-ESTABLISH A VODKA EMPIRE  British director Dan Edelstyn discovers – through reading the diaries of his Jewish grandmother who fled the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 – that his great grandfather’s Ukrainian vodka factory still exists. He decides to import its high quality vodka to the UK, and, in doing so, discovers much about his roots.

Saturday 12 November Coronet 10pm/Thursday 17 November PeckhamPlex 8.30pm

RABIES  Israel’s first ever horror flick!  Rabies was a big hit at this year’s Film 4 FrightFest:  “Keshales and Papushado have mixed such disparate ideas of political satire, slasher-horror and sexual politics together to create something incredibly entertaining...”

Sunday 13 November Tricycle 6.30pm

CHARIOTS OF FIRE  A special gala screening of the multi-Oscar®- winning 1981 film with director Hugh Hudson in attendance.

Sunday 13 November BFI Southbank 2pm

MARY LOUA fabulous cross between a gay version of Mamma Mia! and Glee – in Hebrew – Mary Lou is about Meir, a young gay man who travels to Tel Aviv to find his long-lost mother and becomes a popular drag queen.  Released in Israel as a four part TV series; won the equivalent of the Israeli Emmy in 2010.

Monday 14 November Everyman Hampstead 6.30pm

DIARY  The late Brazilian-born Israeli filmmaker, David Perlov, became internationally famous for his Cinematic Essays and, above all, for his film Diary, the visual account of his own life which he shot on 16mm 1973-83.  This segment is set between 1981 and 1982.

Tuesday 15 November Tricycle 7pm

THE HANGMAN  Nazi and Holocaust organiser, Adolf Eichmann, was hanged in Israel’s only execution in 1962. Hangman Shalom Nagar kept his own identity secret for more than 30 years; regularly haunted by nightmares, Nagar still managed to maintain his personal sanity and a surprisingly humane attitude to life.

Thursday 17 November Tricycle time tbc

RESTORATION  This beautifully shot Israeli drama centres around a failing antique furniture restoration shop, complicated family relationships...and the discovery of an ancient Steinway piano that might just save the store from being turned into apartments. There will be a Q&A with actor Sasson Gabbai.

Saturday 19 November Tricycle 9pm

THE OFFICE  Israel’s hilarious take on the classic British TV series.

Sunday 20 November Tricycle closing night Gala 8pm

INTIMATE GRAMMAR  With his bar mitzvah on the horizon, Aharon, a sensitive, lonely 13-year old boy, whose romantic ideals are at odds with everyone around him, dreads being initiated into an adult world.  Nir Bergman’s film adaptation of David Grossman’s novel, won the Best Feature Film Award at Jerusalem 2010 and the Sakura Grand Prix at Tokyo 2010.