The 31st Jewish Film Festival Berlin Brandenburg | For more openness

How do we respond to the events of October 7, 2023? With courage and a strong willingness to engage in dialogue. The 31st Jewish Film Festival Berlin Brandenburg (JFBB) set a precedent with its opening film, Daniel Robbins' family comedy "Bad Shabbos."

"Bad Shabbos" is a darkly humorous comedy about the disposal of a corpse according to Shabbat rules – and it poignantly brings together tradition, family, and religion. In the best Woody Allen style, Robbins set the tone for the festival: Even if we don't always agree, we should listen to each other in order to find a solution together, across generations.

Past, present, and future often go hand in hand. Author William Faulkner already knew this: "The past is not dead, it is not even past." Faulkner's statement is reflected in the program. Art Spiegelman, son of two survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, quotes Faulkner in his serious black-and-white comic "Maus: A Survivor's Story." Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin's documentary "Art Spiegelman: Disaster is my Muse" is dedicated to the life and work of this extraordinary man.

In "Maus," Spiegelman depicts the lives of his father, Vladek Spiegelman. In the Holocaust comic, the Jews are the mice, the National Socialists are the cats. Spiegelman deals with trauma, guilt, and memory, narrating the unspeakable. In January 2022, "Maus" was banned from the curriculum in Tennessee due to its "inappropriate language" (due to words like "damn" and "bitch" in the comic) and its depiction of nudity, violence, and suicide (Spiegelman drew his mother's suicide). In an interview, Spiegelman commented: "They are disturbing images," but "you know what? It's disturbing history." The comic itself addresses censorship, propaganda, and the danger of being forgotten. The ban propelled "Maus" to number 1 on the US bestseller list—Bernstein and Dolin received funding for the film.

In the documentary "The Governor," director Danel Elpeleg traces her grandfather, who served as a military governor after the founding of the State of Israel, and reports on bureaucratic violence. Since the events of October 7, calls for the reinstatement of the military regime have been raised in Israel. The film is therefore more relevant than ever.

October 7th was a prominent feature of the curatorial program. These include Tom Shoval's documentary "Michtav Le'David: A Letter to David" and the Gershon Klein Documentary Award-winning "Holding Liat" (directed by Brandon Kramer), both of which deal with the fate of Hamas hostages. Dani Rosenberg's feature film "Of Dogs and Men," which won the Gershon Klein Feature Film Award, addresses loss and humanity in the shadow of October 7th and the war. There were also free discussions and panels focusing on October 7th. They were not recorded and took place in a protected setting.

With nearly 60 feature films and documentaries, the JFBB once again reflected the diversity of Jewish cinema this year. Salvador Litvak even presented a rabbi western with "Guns & Moses," and Joe Stephenson presented "Midas Man," a biopic about Beatles manager Brian Epstein. The first film produced in Israel by a Bedouin director was also screened: Yousef Abo Madegem's political drama "Eid."

The festival highlighted the importance of diversity of voices. A good example is Zvi Landsman's documentary "Jacob de Haan – A Voice Out of Time" about the Dutch-Jewish journalist and activist Jacob Israël de Haan. Landsman portrays a personality who is difficult to categorize. Born in the Netherlands in 1881, Jacob de Haan published "Pijpelijntjes" in 1904, one of the Netherlands' first explicitly homosexual novels. In 1919, de Haan settled in Palestine. After turning away from Zionism, he became a political representative of the anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox community. On June 30, 1924, he was assassinated by a member of the Zionist underground organization Haganah.

In addition to solving the De Haan murder, the director was primarily concerned with questions of identity, how we shape it, and how we limit ourselves with labels. De Haan overcame these concerns by continually reinventing himself in order to remain true to himself. He sought answers to contradictions. "Jacob de Haan – A Voice Out of Time" won the JFBB Award for Intercultural Dialogue.

Anetta Kahane, who once served as the first and only Commissioner for Foreigners in the East Berlin Municipality, called for more openness and a willingness to address complexity in a discussion about racism and anti-Semitism. The JFBB once again set a good example this year.