QUEER FILMS SPOTLIGHT AT THE JEWISH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (JIFF) 2021

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www.jiff.com.au

The Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF) is back this year at the Ritz Cinema in Randwick, Sydney, from 18 February to 24 March 2021. The festival spans a varied collection of Jewish films in both documentary and narrative feature formats. There is a bit for everyone, including movies and TV series from Israel, stories about the Holocaust, and compelling profiles of prominent Jewish personalities. 

Two queer films to watch at this festival have a few things in common. Both are smartly-done edgy American indie films that are both provocative and impressive, with charismatic leads who take control of their audience.

SHIVA BABY

This film’s central character is Danielle (Rachel Sennott), a vacillating wayward young bisexual Jewish lady who attends a shiva with her family. Really well done, well-constructed dramedy, not really a romance, a bit coming of age in a wrong way. The audience would really enjoy the funny, biting bitchy self-deprecating Jewish humour, especially the awkward confined visual shots akin to Polanski’s ROSEMARY’S BABY moments. The embarrassing situations kindred to Seinfeld-Larry David humour were hilarious – the suffocating Jewish family and social pressures on the young. Sennott is a natural with the uneasiness of her character.

Interestingly, the lesbian story didn’t really come out in the open until two thirds into the film. It is fundamentally a tense straight and bisexual girl relationship at the forefront, but this is an accomplished, hilarious film. Well-directed, commanding performances and perfect casting!

MINYAN

The film starts with a solemn Kaddish. It is 1986, and the audience is immersed in this Jewish ceremony, complete with all the rituals, customs, and culture. The film delves first and foremost into Jewish life and a religious one at that. Still, it has incorporated a gay coming-of-age story that has also integrated the dilemma of the AIDS crises in the mid to late 80s. It is a very well-done film and will definitely appeal to cinema lovers. The texture of the film is classic cinema like a vintage Coppola or even early Scorsese. 

The queer content is really a slow burn, and much is kept a mystery until the liaison of the lead mensch David (Samuel H. Levine) with the bartender, and it works in a way as a gradual tease. Levine is charismatic as he was quite brooding and appealing. Exceptional performances overall, and topped with a very unexpected surprise ending.