The Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF) returns from 19th October through to the 21st December 2025, presenting 50 new films, documentaries, shorts and a television series.
Screening in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Hobart, Canberra and Perth, the festival brings together the best Jewish-themed stories from around the world. Together they span history and contemporary life, the personal and the political, the intimate and the epic.
“JIFF 2025 reflects the richness of Jewish culture, from icons of music and literature to contemporary struggles and celebrations,” says Artistic Director Eddie Tamir. “The program is about sharing Jewish voices in all their differences and vibrancy. We welcome everyone to come and discover these stories.”
Opening the festival is Bad Shabbos, winner of the Audience Award at Tribeca. This uproarious New York comedy finds two families – one Jewish, one Catholic – gathered for a Shabbat dinner that descends into chaos after a corpse is discovered in the powder room. With a stellar ensemble including Kyra Sedgwick, Australian actor Ashley Zukerman (Succession), and Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man, the film blends rapid-fire farce with razor-sharp insights into family, faith, and crisis management.
Another highlight of this year’s festival is Eleanor the Great, Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut fresh from its Cannes premiere. Starring June Squibb (Nebraska, Thelma) as a brassy 94-year-old reinventing herself in New York, the film is both poignant and hilarious as Eleanor’s storytelling leads her into a Holocaust survivors’ support group – despite her own past not quite fitting the part.
International highlights include Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, a Berlinale prizewinner starring Ethan Hawke as lyricist Lorenz Hart facing the decline of his career on the night Oklahoma! premieres, joined by Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale and Andrew Scott; French box office sensation Once Upon My Mother, adapted from Roland Perez’s memoir and starring Leïla Bekhti, celebrates maternal devotion with over 1.5 million admissions to date; and Matthew Shear makes his feature directorial debut with the wry New York comedy Fantasy Life, starring Alessandro Nivola and Amanda Peet, while Nir Bergman’s Pink Lady, winner of Best Director at Tallinn, tells a nuanced story of secrecy, sexuality and desire in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox community.
Australian voices take centre stage with the world premiere of TYCHO! Beyond the Baton, celebrating Holocaust survivor and musical director Tommy Tycho, whose arrangements helped shape Australia’s cultural identity. JIFF also presents special Work-in-Progress screenings of RISING: Voices of Protest and Hope by Australian director Esther Takac, a documentary that follows five ordinary Israelis who have channelled the trauma of October 7 into grassroots activism to defend democracy and resist authoritarianism.
JIFF also unveils the 2025 Short Film Fund, the largest in its history, delivered in partnership with Jump Street Films and the Jewish Australian Screen Fund. This year’s program premieres four original works that interpret the theme “post-October 7 life in Australia,” offering fresh and diverse perspectives from emerging Jewish Australian storytellers.
The festival also presents powerful new films grappling with history, memory and the legacies of persecution. The Disappearance of Josef Mengele, directed by Russian dissident Kirill Serebrennikov, imagines the postwar years of the notorious Auschwitz doctor. Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire uses unprecedented archival access and Wiesel’s own voice to create a holistic portrait of a private man who became one of the world’s most famous Holocaust survivors. Meanwhile, From Darkness to Light investigates Jerry Lewis’s unfinished and long-suppressed film The Day the Clown Cried, with commentary from Martin Scorsese, Mel Brooks, and newly uncovered footage once thought destroyed.
At the heart of JIFF 2025 is a major retrospective marking the 40th anniversary of Claude Lanzmann’s monumental Shoah screening in a newly restored digital print. A UNESCO-recognised work of global significance, this nine-hour epic reshaped Holocaust cinema by capturing testimony from survivors, perpetrators and bystanders across 14 countries. Screening alongside it is All I Had Was Nothingness, a Berlinale-premiered documentary drawn from over 220 hours of Lanzmann’s unused footage and narrated with passages from his memoir The Patagonian Hare, revealing the covert methods, financial battles and philosophical depth behind the making of Shoah.
JIFF 2025 also presents the television series The Zweiflers, winner of Best Series at Canneseries and described as “the German Succession”. Following a Jewish deli dynasty in Frankfurt and Berlin, this six-part series explores legacy, inheritance and family conflict with wit and bite.
Beyond the screen, JIFF 2025 features lively Opening Night celebrations in Sydney and Melbourne, filmmaker Q&As, and panel discussions designed to bring audiences closer to the stories behind the films. For more information on the festival, titles and ticket prices, head to the official JIFF site here.
JIFF 2025 DATES & VENUES:
MELBOURNE
Classic Cinemas, Elsternwick – Sun 19 Oct – Wed 26 Nov
Lido Cinemas, Hawthorn – Mon 20 Oct – Tue 25 Nov
Cameo Cinemas, Belgrave – Thu 30 Oct – Sun 2 Nov
SYDNEY
Ritz Cinemas, Randwick – Mon 20 Oct – Wed 26 Nov
Roseville Cinemas, Roseville – Thu 30 Oct – Wed 12 Nov
HOBART
State Cinema, North Hobart – Thu 30 Oct – Sun 9 Nov
BRISBANE
Angelika Cinemas, Woolloongabba – Thu 30 Oct – Sun 9 Nov
CANBERRA
Dendy Canberra, Canberra Central – Sat 15 Nov – Sun 16 Nov
PERTH
Luna Leederville, Leederville – Thu 4 Dec – Sun 21 Dec
