Pass the popcorn, turn down the lights: What to watch at the Jerusalem Film Festival

That’s always the problem with choosing movies to see at the Jerusalem Film Festival, the 42nd edition of which opens in the Sultan’s Pool Amphitheater on Thursday, July 17, with a screening of Sentimental Value, the latest movie by Joachim Trier, best known for the film The Worst Person in the World.

Like most movies at the festival, Sentimental Value, a family drama that won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, will be shown several times, so if you can’t make it to the opening, you’ll have other opportunities to see it at the Jerusalem Cinematheque and the Lev Smadar theater, where the festival movies are shown, except for on opening night. The festival will run until July 26.

The festival features every kind of film: features, documentaries, shorts, animated films, and experimental films. The bulk of the movies are recent, both from around the world and from Israel, and many have won prizes at film festivals around the world.

There are many interesting new films from Europe. Jean Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne are a Belgian directing duo known for their naturalistic stories of working-class and migrant life, and they are part of a small club of directors whose films have won the Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, twice. The two, who have visited Israel many times to promote their movies, have just made The Young Mother’s Home, which won the Best Screenplay Award at the Cannes Film Festival this year. The movie is a fictional but documentary-like look at a shelter for teenage mothers, where people of all races and backgrounds work and live together, facing dramatic decisions.

Hafsia Herzi’s The Little Sister tells a complex story of a young woman from an Algerian-immigrant family in the suburbs of Paris who begins exploring a world outside of her traditional upbringing when she begins to study philosophy in the city.

Ido Fluk’s Koln 75 was an audience favorite when it was shown at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year. It tells the backstory of Keith Jarrett’s famous Koln concert, and spotlights the role of a teen girl in organizing the event.

Michel Franco is one of Mexico’s most acclaimed directors, and he will be attending the festival to present his latest film, which is set on both sides of the border, Dreams. It stars Jessica Chastain as a wealthy American woman in a romance with a young Mexican dancer (played by real-life ballet dancer Isaac Hernandez), who find that the outside world puts pressure on them because of their different backgrounds.

The festival has always spotlighted Asian films, and this year is no exception. Fans of the low-key, distinctive South Korean director Hong Sang-soo will be pleased to learn that there are actually two films by him in the festival. By the Stream (2024) is about a teacher and her uncle, a famous theater director, who become involved in a scandal with her student. The director’s latest film, What Does That Nature Say to You, is about a young poet and the day he spends with his girlfriend’s wealthy family. His films will be too slow for some, but many enjoy his offbeat style.

A very different kind of Asian cinema can be seen in legendary Japanese director Takashi Miike’s latest film, Sham. It’s a dark courtroom drama about a teacher who is accused of abusing a child, driving him to commit suicide, and is told from multiple points of view.

The Square, by Kim Bo-sol, is an animated film that tells the story of a forbidden romance between a Swedish diplomat and a North Korean traffic officer in Pyongyang.

While film festivals tend to favor dramas over comedies, there are a few acclaimed comedies to choose from. One of these is The Baltimorons, a comedy by Jay Duplass, the actor who played Josh on Transparent. It drew big laughs at the critics’ preview last weekend and has won several Audience Awards at festivals. The movie tells the story of an unlikely romance that grows out of a Christmas Eve dental emergency.

Tow tells the true story of Amanda Ogle (Rose Byrne), a homeless woman in Seattle who fought a tow-company that sent her a bill for $21,634.

Another US indie film, American Baby, is about a 15-year-old girl in a small Texas town who gets pregnant and goes looking for her baby’s father, who has ghosted her. The director, Ellen Rodnianski, will be present at the first screening at the festival.

Director Sergei Loznitsa is well liked among the Jerusalem Film Festival audience, and his latest film, Two Prosecutors, about an idealistic prosecutor in the USSR in the 1930s who tries to root out government corruption, will be shown.

Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger (1975) is considered one of the masterpieces by the director known for Blow-Up and L’Avventura. It stars Jack Nicholson as an American war correspondent who cannot find the battlefield he is searching for in North Africa and who assumes the identity of a dead arms dealer. Maria Schneider plays the mysterious beautiful woman who helps him along the way.

If all these choices seem too placid for you, try the original 1974 Tobe Hooper horror classic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the documentary about its influence, Chain Reactions.

If you’re looking for a documentary about the real world rather than pop culture, try Wendy Sachs’s thought-provoking October 8, about the antisemitism that erupted on America’s college campuses and streets after the Hamas massacre.