The 13th Warsaw Jewish Film Festival

Mateusz Szczepaniak, 16 November 2016
Organised by the Fundacja Kamera Davida, the 13th Warsaw Festival of Jewish Films is underway at POLIN Museum from 2nd to 8th November 2015. The Festival opened with a preview screening of Sprawiedliwy (Righteous), directed by  Michał Szczerbic. This film is set in a Polish villages and tells of Poles' extreme attitudes towards the Holocaust. This film is not the only one, at this year's Festival, to tell the story of Jews being rescued by Jews.

This year's Festival is dedicated to the memory of Mike Nichols, director of The Graduate, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf  and Catch 22. Amongst this year's program are over thirty of the latest productions of films with Jewish themes. They emanate from fourteen countries - Poland, Israel, the USA, Canada, Germany, Russia, France, Switzerland, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The latest fictional and documentary films, both short and full-length, will be battling for the Festival's awards.

Apart from Sprawiedliwego, Piotr Chrzan's Klezmer has attracted special interest. This drama, in a piercing and novel manner, shows the diverse attitudes of Polish peasants towards Jews during the War. The action begins on a sunny summer day in 1943, when a group of young people come across a wounded Jew in a forest. This event is to have an immense effect upon their lives.

Klezmer will be screened on Saturday, 7th November 2015 at 9:00 pm, prior to which audience members will have the opportunity to meet the film's creators.

Admission to all screenings is free.

The Festival's complete program can be found HERE.