Over the years, small cultural charities such as UK Jewish Film have become accustomed to the deafening silence and avoidance tactics of – largely publicly-funded – cinemas and arts organisations.
Since October 7, that situation has continued, but has become notably worse, particularly outside London.
It feels like a moment to share a little of what goes on behind the scenes, as well as what appear to be the favoured tactics of a politically-savvy cultural management class, which is quietly hastening the erasure of British-Jewish culture from many of our public spaces.
The task of organising the annual UK Jewish Film Festival nationwide tour, which is funded by the British Film Institute (BFI), is even more challenging this year. With a few noble exceptions, our publicly-funded, regional cinemas, are less than welcoming. Ironically, these are exactly the kind of cinemas that are receiving public funding to help ensure that all of Britain’s minorities are represented on their screens and reflected in their audiences. When it comes to Britain’s Jewish minority however, many cinema CEOs and cinema programmers feel impunity to exclude that minority.
Sadly, that silence is our daily experience, and probably that of other outward-facing organisations in the community. Emails and chasers remain unanswered, phone calls are never returned. An appeal for help to our mutual funders in London might occasionally jump-start a breezy response along the line that our emails have been going to junk. This is invariably followed by more silence.
That’s what appears to have happened with Cardiff’s largest publicly-funded cinema, Chapter, which, for the fifth consecutive year, are so “incredibly busy” that they don’t have time to respond, and cannot include one screening of a Jewish film in their programme.
This year, rather poignantly, they had the opportunity to include the sweet and lyrical new UK musical film Psalms, commissioned by UKJF, much of which is sung in the Welsh language by local Welsh actress-singer Llio Millward. How sad that this gentle Welsh-Jewish gem can have no place in Wales’ capital. Perhaps it’s no surprise that the country’s small Jewish minority feels increasingly excluded from cultural life and many are leaving for London.
Other cinemas play the "too busy” card but say we can contact them again in January to see if they have space (when they have been told our festival tour will be over). That’s a tactic used this year by the Sheffield Showroom – though they add reassuringly: “If it is not a possibility to wait, then I understand” – and Northampton Filmhouse, whose blush-worthy brush-off was: “If any dates become available I'll be in touch”. This may be an unfortunate coincidence among genuinely busy venues, but it hasn’t happened to us to this extent before and is happening in more ways and in more locations than in previous years.
This year, UK Jewish Film has been incredibly proud to commission nine short films by British-Jewish filmmakers about British-Jewish life. These are funded entirely in the UK, and will be screened at the festival in November and on tour.
How disappointing then that a senior BBC staff member asked in response to considering one of these films for broadcast if we could provide any words to reassure him why this film – a British film by a British-Jew about Britain – wasn’t “controversial”. We duly explained why it wasn’t in the least bit “controversial”. We never heard from him again.
Even where we have managed to secure slots, the process has been increasingly fraught. At the optimistically named Home, a major arts venue in Manchester, negotiations and arrangements for securing four screenings of Jewish films (none from Israel) have taken six months and were only secured after establishing that we are not funded by the Israeli government, and after pushing back on an attempt to censor one of our short British films by a female British-Jewish filmmaker of Iraqi descent. I have serious doubts as to whether Home is actually a warm and welcoming home for Manchester’s beleaguered Jews, but I sincerely hope to be proven wrong.
In truth, without the help of the commercial independent cinema sector we would struggle to make a nationwide tour a reality. Thank goodness for the steady support of the excellent Curzon and Picturehouse chains, the wonderfully independent-minded Phoenix in London, and the always friendly and welcoming Broadway cinema in Nottingham.
Overall however, our publicly-funded cultural sector risks silencing British-Jewish culture for a generation. If we don’t want to see the erasure of British-Jewish culture from national cultural life, we will need to demonstrate there is a thriving audience for Jewish culture that cannot be side-lined and ignored.
Please don’t boycott cinemas that actually open their doors to the UK Jewish Film Festival, however guarded their welcome. Turn up, support, comment and ask for more. It’s clear that we are going to have to start fighting much harder for the survival of our cultural life.
Michael Etherton is the Chief Executive of UK Jewish Film
