Every week, it seems, there’s a film festival in Australia with a different premise, a different identity, a different way of presenting itself to a niche audience or appealing to a broader one. Many draw on the idea of a national cinema. The Jewish International Film Festival — one of the oldest — has its own particular identity and audience in a competitive and evolving cinematic landscape.
There are more than 50 Jewish film festivals worldwide, says JIFF artistic director Eddie Tamir, “and we are a big one. In terms of admissions, I think we are probably in the top five.”
Tamir, owner of Melbourne’s Lido, Cameo and Classic cinemas, has been involved with the festival since it was renamed and relaunched seven years ago. The word “international” is important. “There are so many countries where there’s a Jewish presence, so it’s an interesting snapshot of the world in the past 12 months, through a particular lens.”
JIFF has, according to Tamir, a “Jewish core audience and a more general art-house audience”, and it is important in programming the festival to present filmgoers with a range of options. As an example of a mainstream film, he cites Holy Lands, written and directed by French filmmaker Amanda Sthers, adapting her novel of the same name. It stars James Caan as an American cardiologist who abandons everything to become a pig farmer in Israel but can’t leave his dysfunctional family behind him.
Read the review by Philippa Hawker in The Australian.