Non-Israeli movie Festival

Warsaw judaic movie Festival (WJFF) will shortly begin. This is the first edition of this festival in years, during which the Jewish.pl portal will not be the media patron.

The festival's creators invited cinematographers to peculiar shows in September. At the Warsaw cinema Luna could be seen, among others, “Coexistence, My Ass!”, an American-French movie about comedian Noam Shuster. Raised in Jewish-Palestinian settlement, the artist describes the situation in the Gaza Strip as “genocide”. In her opinion, the Holocaust education, alternatively of sensitising Israelis, became an excuse that justified “Doing this to another people”.

Shuster reviews are not confronted, there is no movie festival in the programme that would voice a individual looking at the socio-political situation in the mediate East in a different way.

The viewers will be able to watch the Swiss movie “Palestine, which was not there”. The festival website reads: “The film, which is simply a meditation over the roots of its own identity, becomes an effort at polemic arguments with arguments that Palestine of the 1940s was actually ‘no one's land’, a desert awaiting settlement and civilization.”

The festival's programme besides included a place for the German movie “The Leader and Seductor” about Goebbels.

The only Israeli movie (in co-production with Italy) shown at the festival will be the “Pink lady”, concerning the problem of homophobia in the environment of orthodox Jews.

There will be no movie on October 7. Warsaw viewers will not see, for example, the excellent “The Road Between Us“who was qualified for the Toronto movie festival, then removed from it, and yet restored and honored with an audience award. This is simply a communicative of a retired general who, on October 7, 2023, sets out to aid his son, his daughter-in-law, and his granddaughters in Nahal Oz's kibbutz. Currently, the movie can be seen in cinemas in the USA and Canada.

On September 2, 2025, the Warsaw judaic movie Festival released a message saying that the festival's creators are “deeply moved by the destiny of Palestinians”. They stressed that the festival is not financed “by organisations related to the Israeli government and another Israeli entities”. They assured that the festival was a space of communication. “We have always done everything to connect, not share. erstwhile Israeli civilians were killed in barbaric terrorist attacks, we were united with the victims and profoundly grieved by the situation of Israeli hostages and their families."

The relation of festival creators to Israeli hostages evolved. On October 8, 2023 on Facebook, WJFF recommended a peculiar comment by Konstanty Gebert, in which he said, “We are dealing with an opponent [means Hamas] with whom it will be hard to negociate peace, due to the fact that the satisfaction of killing him.” On October 9, 2023 a post by Rafał Trzaskowski was made available on the same profile with the description “Not for Violence! Not to attack defenseless citizens and Israeli citizens." On October 14, 2023 there appeared a post by the Polin Museum on solidarity with “Israeli friends”.

On 1 November 2023, a post by Maria Synger was made available, which she wrote among others.

“Actresses and actors, activists and activists scream to let humanitarian aid into Gaza. But I can't hear them screaming to release Israeli hostages. The Women's Marches cry over the murdered Palestinian mothers. But they did not shed tears over Israelis raped and murdered in front of their children. The LGBTQ+ environment, which so eagerly accepted all colored rainbows with the Star of David and support of the judaic number now screams Free Palestine and fails to announcement anti-Semitic slogans around each another (...)".

On June 18, 2024 WJFF's creators invited for a fresh series of films, the aim being to “see the complexity of judaic culture”. This complexity – according to the organizers – is shown by the movie “No another land”. It is simply a Palestinian-Norwegian production that tells about the turbulent relations between Israelis and residents of the West Bank directed and produced by pro-Palestinian activists.

One of the creators of the WJFF informed on Facebook about his participation in pro-Palestinian marches. On August 17, 2025, his profile features photos of people carrying banners with inscriptions: “Israel murders children”, “Stop starving Gaza”, “break off relations with Israel”. On September 20, 2025, this individual posted a photograph from the March for Palestine with Palestinian flags and parties Together. Her profile featured photographs of people carrying slogans: “Issrahell burn in hell”, “To break down the wall of the Gaza ghetto”.

On September 23, I wrote to the festival organizer why this year the Jewish.pl portal did not receive a request for media patronage over the event. I repeated my message on October 4. I haven't received any answers to this. Is it due to the fact that I didn't participate in pro-Palestinian marches? Or is it due to the fact that I emphasize that anti-Zionism is an act of anti-Semitism?

“We have always done everything to connect alternatively than divide” – WJFF creators say. Well, you failed this year.

Katarzyna Grabowska