Lisbon to hold first Jewish film festival

JTA — Hundreds of people are expected to attend Lisbon’s first-ever Jewish film festival next week.

The three-day festival, entitled “Judaica: 1st exhibition of cinema and culture,” is scheduled to open on May 22 at Lisbon’s main art cinema, Cinema Sao Jorge, and will include 15 Jewish and Israeli documentary and feature productions, according to a report by the Jornal Digital news site.

The Jewish community of Lisbon said on its official Facebook page that the event is the Portuguese capital’s first Jewish film festival.

Present at the launch will be Radu Mihaileanu, a Jewish Romanian-born French film director and screenwriter, as well as the Israeli filmmakers Dina Zvi-Riklis and Eran Riklis.

Other activities at the event, co-sponsored by the City of Lisbon and the centrally located Sao Jorge, include performances by the Lisbon Klezmer brass band.

Elena Piotok, the Mexican-born initiator of the festival, told the Lusa news agency, that her goal was “to bring films that usually don’t arrive here.”

Piotok added that some of the films have “huge educational importance,” like “Never Forget To Lie,” a 2012 documentary by filmmaker Marian Marzynski about how he survived the Holocaust as a child in Poland by leaving his parents behind and hiding his identity.