Jewish International Film Festival 2022
October 24 – December 7, 2022
JIFF is back again! Aleph Melbourne showcases the queer sessions.
Full programme here. Tickets on sale at jiff.com.au.
Concerned Citizen
Ben thinks of himself as a liberal and enlightened gay man, living in the perfect apartment with his boyfriend Raz. All that’s missing to complete the picture is a baby, which the couple are trying to make a reality. Meanwhile Ben decides to improve his up-and-coming neighbourhood in gritty south Tel-Aviv by planting a new tree on his street. But his good deed soon triggers a sequence of events that leads to the brutal police arrest of an Eritrean immigrant.
America
Eli is an Israeli swimming coach living in the US. When he receives news of his father’s death, Eli reluctantly travels to Tel Aviv for the first time in 10 years to deal with the estate. On his short trip he decides to visit his childhood friend, Yotam. Yotam is running a small and beautiful flower shop in Jaffa, together with his fiancée Iris, a talented florist. When Eli comes to visit the two, he will set in motion a series of events that will affect everyone’s lives. Winner of Best Actress Prize at the 2022 Jerusalem Film Festival, the film offers a psychologically complex and thought-provoking story about relationships with a strong sensual through-line that keeps viewers guessing.
The Therapy
A bold documentary which reveals conversion therapy from within for the first time. Director Zvi Landsman is given unprecedented access to conversion therapy sessions, following the journeys of Lev; a 54-year-old divorced Orthodox Jew who hopes to be remarried to a woman, and Ben; a 23-year-old social work student who is seven years into therapy and starts to doubt the practice.
