Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival to Host Volker Schlöndorff, Michael Rapaport

The 28th Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to take place from December 5 to 10, 2026, at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, organizers announced Sunday. The festival will feature over 40 films from 15 countries, alongside filmmaker Q&As, lectures, panels, and special events.

The festival will open on Saturday evening, December 5, with a screening of "The Lake House" by German director Volker Schlöndorff, who will attend the event and receive a lifetime achievement award. The closing event on Thursday, December 10, will screen the documentary "Have They Cancelled Me Yet?" followed by a discussion with actor Michael Rapaport and director Ruth Bar-Dana Kent, hosted by Ben Ben-Baruch.

The international competition, which includes the Shumen Prize for Jewish Cinema, will screen films such as "Wild West of the East" starring Itai Tiran, "An Unknown Woman" by Mai Al-Touki, and "I Want to Tell My Story" by Tomer Heymann, which focuses on Holocaust survivor Shimon Rothschild.

Additional screenings include documentaries about Theodor Herzl, the Camondo family, the YIVO archive in Vilnius, and the war diaries of Swedish children's author Astrid Lindgren. The Israeli cinema section will host the Bania Zuckerman short film competition and showcase graduation films from the ultra-Orthodox branch of the Ma'ale Film School, alongside new documentaries like "The Long Road Home," "Uprooted," and "Champions of the Desert." The opening episodes of the series "Whose Daughter Are You?" and "The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem" (season 3) will also be presented.

The classic section will feature a digitally restored copy of "Tuvia and Seven Daughters" (1968) and a tribute to producer Arthur Cohen with a screening of "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis." Tickets for the opening event are available on the Jerusalem Cinematheque website, with sales for other films and the closing event opening on Sunday, November 22.