9th UK Jewish Film Festival

The UK premiere of Live and Become opened 2005’s Festival. The screening was at the Vue Cinema in Leicester Square, with Lord Puttnam of Queensgate CB in attendance. The film was introduced by the director, Radu Mihaileanu.

2005 also saw the creation of the first Short Film Fund, which promoted film making on Jewish themes. The first winner of the award was Jes Benstock with his short film Holocaust Tourism: Whatever Happened to Never Again, which was premiered at the Festival. Other films in the 2005 UKJFF included Everything is Illuminated, starring Elijah Wood, In Her Shoes, starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley Maclaine, and Bee Season, starring Richard Gere. Bee Season was introduced by Anthony Minghella. The Festival also hosted the UK Premiere of The First Time I Was Twenty, a tale of antisemitism in Paris.

Venues for the Festival included London’s The Screen on the Hill, The Tricycle, Phoenix and the Curzon Soho. Films were also shown in Belfast, Brighton, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Southampton.