Muscovites get their fix of Jewish films

Audiences in Moscow began to get their dose of Jewish films this week, as venues around the Russian capital screened a range of documentaries, movies and short narratives, alongside question and answer sessions with directors.

This is the seventh Moscow Jewish Film Festival and among the highlights is a Q&A with Ari Folman, who shot to international fame with his 2008 animated film Waltz with Bashir, based on his memories of the 1982 Lebanon War.

Folman’s latest work – another animated film called Where is Anne Frank – takes the teenage diarist’s imaginary friend as the main character.

Alongside a stable of well-known films, including Seth Rogen’s An American Pickle, the festival is also showing three anti-Zionist films, including a contemporary Palestinian work, a Jewish documentary and an archival Soviet picture.

“The ideological and practical opposition to Zionist goals is alive and thriving in the US, Europe and, curiously enough, Israel,” said organisers.

“As a result, this theme inevitably finds its reflection in cinema… We will try to understand the phenomenon of anti-Zionism and Jewish identity and how they  influence the representation of the Jewish people on screen.”