2023 Jerusalem Film Fest announces international movie lineup

The 40th Jerusalem Film Festival, which will run from July 13-23 at the Jerusalem Cinematheque and other places around the city, has just released highlights of its lineup of international films. It will feature movies that have won top prizes at such festivals as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, and Toronto. The festival will include movies by some of the most celebrated filmmakers working today. 

Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses is about a teacher in an isolated Turkish village who dreams of being transferred to Istanbul. Its star, Merve Dizdar, won the Best Actress Award at Cannes.

Nanni Moretti’s latest movie, A Brighter Tomorrow, tells the story of a movie director and his struggles with his family as he works on a film about the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 – that stars Moretti and his frequent leading actress, Margherita Buy. 

Hong Sang-soo’s In Water looks at an actor making a movie on the coast. Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer is a remake of Queen of Hearts and tells of a lawyer’s affair with her stepson. 

What other movies are on the lineup at the Jerusalem Film Festival?

There will also be many films by newcomers. Molly Manning Walker’s How to Have Sex, which won the Un Certain Regard Award at the Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of three hard-partying British girls on a holiday. Celine Song’s Past Lives, one of the most buzzed-about movies from Berlin, is about childhood sweethearts from Korea who are reunited in America many years later. A. V. Rockwell’s One Thousand and One, about a mother who kidnaps her son back from foster care, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell by Thien An Pham, about a man who returns to his hometown, won the Golden Camera Award at Cannes.

Among the documentaries will be Sergey Loznitsa’s The Kiev Trial, a look at the war crimes trial in Ukraine in 1946; Rock Hudson: All that Heaven Allowed by Stephen Kijack, a portrait of the first major Hollywood star to come out of the closet; Ido Mizrahy’s The Longest Goodbye, a look at what we can learn from the social isolation of astronauts; and Werner Herzog’s Theater of Thought, a look at the human brain. 

There will also be a number of classics screened, among them, Once Upon a Time in America by Sergio Leone and Stranger Than Paradise by Jim Jarmusch. 

The festival will open with a screening of Guy Nattiv’s Golda starring Helen Mirren as Israel’s only female prime minister – at the Sultan’s Pool Amphitheater on July 13. 

The closing-night film will be Anatomy of a Fall by Justine Triet, a courtroom drama that won the Golden Palm, the top prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. All in all, there will be over 200 films from 45 countries around the world. 

To find out more and buy tickets, go to the festival website at https://jff.org.il/