#FIRSTLOOK: 2020 TORONTO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL LINE-UP

For the first time ever, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival moves online this year May 30 –  June 7, 2020 with 39 curated titles. Keren Bar Rafael’s The End of Love opens the Festival, while Israel, Land of the Series closes the Festival.

Other titles include:

Give Me Liberty – a young medical transport bus driver and his passengers – a group of kvetching elderly Russians, a Russian boxer, charming special-needs clients, and a feisty young woman with ALS – make the unlikeliest of companions

Those Who Remained – Hungary’s Oscar entry for Best International Feature

Van Goghs – a tortured artist who comes home to take care of his father with early stages of dementia

Man on the Bus – a Melbourne-based filmmaker discovers her mother’s long held secret, uncovers the true story of her biological father, and meets siblings she never knew existed.

Syndrome K – the sharp wits of Roman Catholic Doctors who created a fictitious infectious disease that saved hundreds of Jews during WWII

Chichinette: The Accidental Spy –  a young Jewish woman with an unassuming appearance and remarkable resourcefulness contributed to the defeat of the Nazi regime

Lily – about one of the first female pioneers in comic books, Lily Renée Phillips, who illustrated some of the legendary female protagonists of the 1950s and who inspired generations of future comic artists.

Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn – about the infamously corrupt lawyer and the wide-sweeping effect he had on the conservative American political landscape from his counsel of Joseph McCarthy through to his years as a New York ‘fixer’

Churchill and the Movie Mogul – examines his partnership with Hungarian Jewish emigre and England’s first and only movie mogul, Alexander Korda, and their exploitation of cinema’s propagandistic potential

Dayan: The First Family – a 4-part docu-series about ‘the Israeli Kennedy’s’ offering an uncompromising glimpse into the five-generation dynasty that produced some of the country’s most famous politicians, rock stars and poets.

Tel Aviv takes the spotlight in several films including:

There Are No Lions in Tel Aviv – a documentary about the bittersweet story of ‘Rabbi Doolittle’ who fulfilled a lifelong dream of building a zoo to teach children about animals

Chained – a riveting examination of masculinity in contemporary Israel by the director of Ajami, that deftly combines documentary realism with fiction

City of Desire – a strikingly shot, black-and-white documentary that explores the origins of The White City, Tel Aviv’s architecturally renowned neighborhood.

More here on the Festival.

 

(Photo credit: TJFF)