Calendar

JIFF is the home of the most comprehensive range of Israeli and Jewish-themed films in Australia and New Zealand. The films premiere in our annual three-week film festival in November or our newly established Holocaust Film Series in March. JIFF is building on the long and proud 24-year history of Jewish film festivals in Australia.

Censored Voices (2015)

The 1967 ‘Six-Day’ war ended with Israel’s decisive victory; conquering Jerusalem, Gaza, Sinai and the West Bank. It is a war portrayed, to this day, as a righteous undertaking – a radiant emblem of Jewish pride. One week after the war, a group of young kibbutzniks, led by renowned author Amos Oz, recorded intimate conversations with soldiers returning from the battlefield. The recording revealed an honest look at the moment Israel turned from David to Goliath. The Israeli army censored the recordings, allowing the kibbutzniks to publish only a fragment of the conversations. ‘Censored Voices’ reveals the original recordings for the first time.
84 minutes.

Awards of the Israeli Film Academy 2015

DocAviv Film Festival 2015

London Film Festival 2015

Sundance Film Festival 2015

JIFF is the home of the most comprehensive range of Israeli and Jewish-themed films in Australia and New Zealand. The films premiere in our annual three-week film festival in November or our newly established Holocaust Film Series in March. JIFF is building on the long and proud 24-year history of Jewish film festivals in Australia.

Felix and Meira (2015)

Making the most of the family home while her parents are away, Nicole, 22 years old, is enjoying a peaceful summer with her best friend Véronique. When Nicole’s older brother shows up with his band to record an album, the girls’ friendship is put to the test. Their vacation takes an unexpected turn, punctuated by a heatwave, Nicole’s growing insomnia and the persistent courtship of a 10-year-old boy.

105 minutes.

Chicago International Film Festival 2014

Haifa International Film Festival 2014

RiverRun International Film Festival 2015

San Sebastián International Film Festival 2014

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2014

Toronto International Film Festival 2014

Warsaw International Film Festival 2014

Whistler Film Festival 2014

JIFF is the home of the most comprehensive range of Israeli and Jewish-themed films in Australia and New Zealand. The films premiere in our annual three-week film festival in November or our newly established Holocaust Film Series in March. JIFF is building on the long and proud 24-year history of Jewish film festivals in Australia.

To Life! (2015)

Fate has taken its toll on the aging cabaret singer Ruth and the young but terminally ill Jonas. Yet despite their great age difference and their entirely opposite experiences in life, they form an intense bond and give each other a reason and purpose to live.

90 minutes.

JIFF is the home of the most comprehensive range of Israeli and Jewish-themed films in Australia and New Zealand. The films premiere in our annual three-week film festival in November or our newly established Holocaust Film Series in March. JIFF is building on the long and proud 24-year history of Jewish film festivals in Australia.

Sabena Hijacking (2015)

Sabena Hijacking My Version is a powerful, suspenseful docu-drama based on previously undiscovered audio recordings of the former pilot, Captain Reginald Levy. Captain Levy (now deceased) was in command of the Sabena Flight 571 from Brussels, Belgium to Tel Aviv, Israel on 8 May 1972, when it was hijacked by four members from the “Black September”, the armed wing of Fatah or Palestine Liberalization Organisation.

The film finally shares the untold story of what exactly took place on the flight throughout 30 hours of nerve-wrecking captivity. It channels the English pilots impartial view of the events and elaborates on them with exclusive access to three revered Israeli political leaders who were in charge of the rescue effort, as well as the only surviving hijacker, who tell their own story.

Current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu featured, alongside the other key political decision makers at the time, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former Prime Minister, President and Nobel Prize winner Shimon Peres.

Therese Halsa, one of the four hijackers who was a girl of just 18 at the time, gives her version of events, following release from a 220 year prison sentence of which she served 13 years. Sabena Hijacking My Version fuses candid interviews with archive material and dramatic reenactments of the tense scenes inside the aircraft and the control tower as Captain Levy was held at gunpoint.

It takes viewers into the aircraft to witness the events first-hand as the hijackers threatened to explode hand grenades unless 300 prisoners were released. It also gives insight to the tense negotiations which eventually led to a heroic rescue operation during which a special unit of soldiers (disguised as technicians) stormed the plane.

The result is a captivating, fast-paced film full of suspense, which poses significant political and historical questions that are not only still important, but have shaped the Israel of today.

104 minutes.

If you’ve not heard of Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin, you’ll wonder how that could have been once you’ve seen what he does in this film. For dance aficionados, this is surely the most anticipated artist portrait since Wim Wenders’ Pina.

“A spectacular and celebratory investigation of a modern dancer’s creative process, this documentary tracks the four decades-long career of renowned choreographer Ohad Naharin, the artistic director of Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company. Thoughtfully and painstakingly researched, the film is packed with visually arresting archival footage from every stage of Naharin’s professional (and personal) life…

Choreographed pieces move in kinetic bursts from the rehearsal studio to the stage and, in interviews, dancers who’ve worked with him and colleagues from different periods offer insights in terms both admiring and blunt. Naharin is similarly expressive – about… the joys of physical expression, his struggles to convey his vision to those tasked with embodying it and the dance-world backdrop against which he developed his singular choreographic style and movement language, known as Gaga.

Heymann, a veteran documentarian whose filmography includes an earlier work about Naharin, skillfully constructs a portrait from these elements, methodically adding layers and sometimes revisiting previously seen footage, arming the viewer with new revelations and a more complicated understanding.” — Lynn Rapoport, San Francisco International Film Festival

Investigative journalism meets conspiracy thriller as Alex Gibney (Going Clear, NZIFF15) goes on the trail of Stuxnet, the extraordinary computer virus that metastasised around the world before it arrived at its target, Iranian nuclear facilities, and performing its mission: exploding uranium-enrichment centrifuges.

Undeterred by muzzled officials, the indomitable Gibney shows how Stuxnet – or ‘Olympic Games’, as its architects called it – was cooked up covertly by the US and Israel, creating a new level of virus complexity and a new class of weapon. One of Gibney’s sources, dramatised as a composite individual and played by a digitally reconstituted actor (one of many striking visual effects), says the worm may never have come to public attention had it not been for a unilateral Israeli move to recalibrate Stuxnet’s code and accelerate its impact. A wider operation had to be abandoned, and Tehran retaliated in kind, attacking US institutions with malware and parading its own burgeoning ‘cyber army’.

Gibney manages not only to illuminate in plain terms how Stuxnet worked, but to also issue a powerful warning about the Pandora’s box it opens. Echoing ideas explored in his WikiLeaks documentary We Steal Secrets, Gibney argues that in the face of an emerging cyber-conflict threat, which is analogous to that of nuclear weapons many decades ago, international norms and rules of engagement must be developed outside the shadows of secrecy and denial. — Toby Manhire

“Zero Days is reminiscent of that scene in Skyfall when Q tells 007 that he can do more damage with his laptop before his morning cup of Earl Grey than Bond can do in a year.” — Nicholas Barber, BBC

The German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt left her indelible imprint on 20th-century thought by coining the concept of the ‘banality of evil’ when reporting on the 1963 trial of Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann. This spirited documentary illuminates that often abused idea and draws a larger picture of Arendt’s often conflicted engagement with the defining phenomena of her era – and maybe ours too.

Richly illustrated with historical footage, Vita Activa offers an intimate portrait of Arendt’s life and work – both deeply informed by the aftermath of World War I, the rise of Nazi Germany and its systematic elimination of European Jews.

“Directed by Israeli documentarian Ada Ushpiz, who has degrees in philosophy and history as well as filmmaking experience, Vita Activa closely examines Arendt’s ‘active life’ with the goal of putting us inside her formative experiences, the better to reveal who she was and where her attitudes came from. There are interviews with old friends and academic experts and extensive use of filmed interviews Arendt herself gave, as well as the effective reading of excerpts from her essays and letters by actress Alison Darcy. Though the talk is smart and constant here, Vita Activa also benefits from the director’s sharp eye for effective, often rarely seen newsreel and home-movie footage.” — Kenneth Turan, LA Times

“There are moments in Vita Activa, an urgent and often startling documentary from Israeli director Ada Ushpiz, where I could feel her trying to reach across the decades and talk to us.” — Andrew O’Hehir, Salon

CANTERBURY UNIVERSITY: RAPHAEL WEIN AND NAFTALI GROSS

Tuesday October 25, 12 noon

 THE NZ INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS INVITES YOU TO WHAT PROMISES TO BE AN ENGAGING AND FASCINATING ADDRESS

Ethical Dilemmas of Serving in the Israeli Defense Forces:  Israel’s war against terrorism.

About the Speakers:

Raphael is a Business Administration and Political Science Student at Ariel University and is a reservist in the IDF.  Naftali is a medical student at the Hebrew University and a volunteer paramedic for Magen David (the equivalent of St John’s Ambulance Service in NZ) and is also a reservist in the IDF.  Both were combatants in the 2014 Gaza War. 

Venue:  Logie 104, University of Canterbury, Ilam, Christchurch.
A map showing the location of the venue may be obtained by clicking this link.

Admission is free

Feel free to pass this notice on to anyone else you feel may be interested.

How I survived the Holocaust in Czechoslovakia

Please note that the venue has been changed from Room 201 to Room 203 in the same building.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Peter Gaspar is a Holocaust survivor and educator, who uses his experiences to help inform young people about the dangers of prejudice and discrimination. Peter was born in Bratislava in Czechoslovakia and survived the war by going into hiding. Along with his parents, Peter was hidden for three years and then during the last six months, Peter and his mother were interned in the Terezin Concentration Camp. Peter currently volunteers with the Courage to Care program in Melbourne inspiring young people to be more accepting and tolerant. This year he will also be travelling to schools throughout New Zealand, through the HOPE Project.

How I survived the Holocaust in Czechoslovakia

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Peter Gaspar is a Holocaust survivor and educator, who uses his experiences to help inform young people about the dangers of prejudice and discrimination. Peter was born in Bratislava in Czechoslovakia and survived the war by going into hiding. Along with his parents, Peter was hidden for three years and then during the last six months, Peter and his mother were interned in the Terezin Concentration Camp. Peter currently volunteers with the Courage to Care program in Melbourne inspiring young people to be more accepting and tolerant. This year he will also be travelling to schools throughout New Zealand, through the HOPE Project.