Your guide to the 2025 Jewish International Film Festival 

Traditions of storytelling are universal, but the depth and breadth of international Jewish filmmaking is unusual. The Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF), which opens across Australia in mid-October, is testament to the diversity of Jewish experience over time and space, as well as across the religious and political spectrum.

Perhaps one consequence of a widely dispersed diaspora is that Jews have always been early adopters of all kinds of globalised communication technologies. We seem compelled to share our stories in any available format.  

The 50+ plus films at JIFF 2025 come from 15 countries, including Israel and Australia. There are 26 documentaries and 19 feature films, two retrospectives, four Yiddish horror shorts and four local premieres produced with the support of the JIFF Short Film Fund.  

To guide you in choosing from the smorgasbord choices, here are some tasters.  

JIFF opens barely two years after October 7, 2023 but it includes four films about the impact of the Hamas massacre, the continuing hostage crisis and resulting diaspora experience. All are documentaries – the events are still too raw for drama. 

Perhaps the most creative is A Letter to David, a personal cinematic message to hostage David Cunio by filmmaker Tom Shoval, based on behind-the-scenes footage and audition tapes from Shoval’s earlier film Youth, which starred David Cunio and his twin brother Eitan.