The Toronto Jewish Film Festival (TJFF) is celebrating 31 years with in-person and virtual screenings starting this week.
This year’s festival is taking place from June 1-11 and will feature films from Canada and dozens of international features, from Uganda to Ukraine.
Opening night general admission tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. General admission tickets for the remaining festival viewings are $15 in advance and $18 at the door.
The TJFF began in 1993 to highlight Jewish culture in Toronto, which at the time was limited in the film industry, according to the organization’s site. It began as the ‘downtown’ Festival and later expanded to various venues across Toronto.
The TJFF Foundation, incorporated a year later in 1994, works to “expose the non-Jewish community to the multiculturalism and diversity of Jewish life globally.”
This year’s opening night in-person film will be The Man In The Basement, at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema. The film is a psychological thriller and an exploration of antisemitism, that follows the deceitful buyer of a basement apartment and the couple who owns the building.
Other films being shown throughout the festival include Less Than Kosher by Daniel Am Rosenberg, The Accusation by Yvan Attal and America by Ofir Raul Graizer, which follows a swim coach that returns to Israel for the death of his abusive father and reconnects with his childhood friend and fiancee that begins a series of additional life-altering events.
The 31st festival will also honour filmmaker Paul Morrison whose work has centered Jewish life in Britain for decades.
Events listed as free still require tickets and all films presented online can be viewed by Ontarians only.
Find TJFF’s film schedule and tickets here.
