Jewish films made in Britain? They don’t count - The Jewish Chronicle

British feature films on Jewish themes are a little like comets. Every few years, one suddenly appears streaking madly through the sky, having made it through the atmosphere against all odds. Disobedience was a notable example of just such a freak event, but that was back in distant 2017.

In the UK, feature films with Jewish stories tend to get the thumbs down early on, politely but crushingly. In France, by contrast, French movie stars are queuing up to appear in a swathe of new dramas with bold and unabashed Jewish themes. How wonderful it is, therefore, that in this year’s UK Jewish Film Festival, Oscar-nominated actress Berenice Bejo (The Artist) stars in the suspenseful tale of a charming young couple facing their worst demon in The Man in the Basement. Screen legend Daniel Auteuil plays a Jewish shopkeeper, hiding in his own cellar in Farewell Mister Haffman. Those readers who are fans of Call My Agent will recognise the charming Nathalie Baye who portrays a Jewish seamstress in the glamorous fashion drama Haute Couture.

Meanwhile Charlotte Gainsbourg stars in The Accusation, and Elsa Zylberstein plays the pioneering politician and magistrate Simone Veil in Oscar-winning director Olivier Dahan’s new biopic. The French and Italian film industries were even happy enough to fund an obscure but achingly beautiful film about growing Succot etrogs in Puglia (Where Life Begins, starring Italian heart-throb Riccardo Scamarcio).

In contrast, for the third year running there is not a single British feature film in this year’s UK Jewish Film Festival. Surely Britain’s oldest minority, with its unique and distinctive quirks and cultures, would seem at least as interesting a seam to mine for stories and inspiration as say, France’s Jewish community?

Yes, of course it is, and there is certainly no shortage of brilliant stories and great writers out there eager to make films on Jewish themes. However, the diversity agenda in the arts, which, ironically, is designed to give better representation to minorities, does precisely the opposite when it comes to Jews. British films on Jewish themes are in effect excluded.

No Jewish films year after year and therefore no queue of British movie stars chomping at the bit to play in the latest British film on a Jewish theme. This, in combination with the dwindling number of Jewish filmmakers who feel that film (and the arts in general) are a place where they feel welcome, is disastrous for Jewish representation on film in the UK.

That’s a shame but does it really matter? As antisemitism has moved from the fringes into the mainstream over the last few years, film is an important tool with mass appeal that helps us challenge the age-old antisemitic tropes that are being touted even at the heart of our national life. We need to see Jewish people and their stories in our cinemas just as we are quite rightly seeing other minorities depicted on our screens. In France, where the rise of antisemitism is more acute and Jews have been leaving in droves, the film industry has grasped the urgency of this and has taken action. Here in the UK, it feels like business as usual in a film establishment that seems to have limited understanding or empathy for the Jewish community.

So here’s my rather modest call to action to our British film industry — let’s see at least one UK feature film on a Jewish theme for 2023.

Despite the lack of home-grown films, the UK Jewish Film Festival 2022 has one its strongest international programmes for years. I suspect our movie stars would probably be queueing up to play parts if only the films were there in the first place. How lovely nevertheless that Helena Bonham Carter will be with us in person at the festival to discuss Three Minutes: A Lengthening. Or that Jim Broadbent will be introducing the incredible Charlotte. Or that the formidable French political activist and philosopher, Bernard Henri-Levy, is coming from Paris to talk about his eye-opening new film The Will To See.

Don’t miss rising young stars like Natalia Sinelkovia with her dark and witty We Might As Well Be Dead, and first time Israeli director Idan Haguel with his edgy Tel Aviv drama Concerned Citizen. We are delighted to be fully back in cinemas nationwide and urge you to help ensure that we continue to be heard and seen through film. Please be there with us in person to ensure a future for Jewish life on the big and small screen.

UK Jewish Film Festival runs 10-20 November in cinemas across London, Manchester and 7 other cities. ukjewishfilm.org

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