UK Jewish Film Festival launches programme

Programme includes Philip Roth retrospective

by Amber Wilkinson

Three Identical Strangers - New York,1980: three complete strangers accidentally discover that they're identical triplets, separated at birth.
Three Identical Strangers - New York,1980: three complete strangers accidentally discover that they're identical triplets, separated at birth. Photo: Newsday LLC

The programme of the UK Jewish Film Festival has been announced. The 22nd edition, which runs from November 8 to 22, will screen films at 21 cinemas across London, Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham, Brighton and Glasgow.

It will screen 85 films from 16 countries, including 51 UK premieres.

Programme highlights include a Philip Roth Retrospective - including The Human Stain and Portnoy's Complaint - alongside gala screenings and restored classics.

Chief executive of UK Jewish Film Michael Etherton said: “With anti-Semitism on the rise in the UK and across Europe there has never been a more important time to share through film, stories and experiences about Jewish life.

"We remain determined and committed to using film as a means of combatting antisemitism and creating better understanding and awareness of Jewish life. I am deeply proud of the variety, quality and diversity of this year’s festival programme.”

The opening gala will be the UK premiere of Michal Aviad's Working Woman, which follows an ambitious career woman who struggles with workplace harassment and stars Liron Ben Shlush, Menashe Noy and Oshri Cohen.

The centrepiece gala is documentary Three Identical Strangers, which tells the extraordinary story of three men who discovered they were brothers after a chance meeting. Directed by Tim Wardle, it won the Special Jury Prize in Sundance earlier this year and you can read what Paul Saunderson told us about scoring the film here.

Eric Barbier's Promise At Dawn, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg as an overbearing Jewish mum, will close the festival.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on September 26. For more information about the full programme visit the official site.

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