AJFF Closing Night panel for the film “Colleyville”.  L to R: AJFF Director David Finkel, Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller, film director Dani Menkin, Colleyville survivor Jeffrey Cohen. Credit: Joe Steinberg  

By David Finkel 

The 22nd Austin Jewish Film Festival recently finished its in-person run on November 10 at the Dell JCC. The festival’s mission is to show the best of Jewish and Israeli films and to enhance the viewing experience with additional programs, something achieved with great success this year as evidenced by the audience choice award for best film that was actually a tie between “Running on Sand” and “The Glory of Life,” each rated at 4.9 / 5. Indeed, no film in the festival was rated less than 4.4 and the overall average score was an incredible 4.6.  

Opening night kicked off with a reception featuring food, drinks, and live music followed by the new crime thriller “Guns & Moses” with filmmaker and co-host of the Accidental Talmudist Sal Litvak in attendance for a post-film Q&A that delighted audience members.  

The festival was thrilled to host three world premiere films this year, including the documentary “Iron Ladies” from the Republic of Ireland. AJFF was honored to have the support of the local Irish Consulate and Consul Robbie Hull and his wife were in attendance at the screening. The commissioning producer, Roger Childs, who is Senior Production Executive and Commissioning Editor of Religious Programmes at RTE, the Irish National TV and Radio broadcaster joined us after the film for a live-over-zoom Q&A about this wonderful film that highlights the 35s, a group of young women in the UK and Ireland who took on the cause of Soviet Refuseniks and won.  

The new documentary “Song of Ascent” about singer Matishyahu’s experience around the events and aftermath of October 7 was enhanced by having filmmaker Shlomo Weprin come to Austin to talk about the film on opening weekend.  

Another World Premiere screening was a free showing of the short film “Seeds for Change,” made by local Jewish community member Mike O’Krent. This environmental documentary was produced by former Austinites Rosalie and Joe Oliveri—O’Krent and the Oliveris were joined by fellow Peace Corp colleague Robbie Albracht for a post-film panel discussion.  

Probably the most unusual and fun event of the festival was the Yaniv program. This began with the eponymous fun comedy film, based on a card game of the same name. The screening was followed by a Q&A with lead actor and co-screenwriter Benjamin Ducoff. Afterwards a Yaniv pop-up club was held so that everyone could play this fun game. The event also featured a spirits tasting from Johnny Pickles Distillery as well as lots of prizes for event participants.    

Closing night began with a reception featuring food from Batch Craft Beer and Kolaches (run by the Lit family), drinks, and live music followed by a screening of Dani Menkin’s latest movie, “Colleyville” that many in the community helped support financially. The movie tells the story of the 2022 synagogue hostage crisis in a Dallas suburb.  Menkin was joined at the post-film Q&A by survivor Jeffrey Cohen and Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller in what was a truly memorable end to this year’s in-person festival.  

From November 15-24, the festival made all of the films that played in person plus a few additional ones available to view virtually to those living in Texas.]  

The festival’s executive committee expressed their gratitude to all the AJFF supporters, volunteers, community partners, and especially this year’s major sponsors: The Economic Development Department at the City of Austin, Shalom Austin, Austin PBS, The Loewy Law Firm, The Kind Foundation, and The Honorary Consul of the Federal Republic of Germany.  

While the festival is over for this year, AJFF continues to program year-round events as part of AJFF365, its monthly films series in collaboration with Shalom Austin.     

To learn more about upcoming festival events, as well as partner screenings and occasional free sneak peek screenings of major new movies. Sign up for the InFocus newsletter at AustinJFF.org.