Bernstein & Bahr’s Best Bets at AJFF 2025
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Bernstein & Bahr’s Best Bets at AJFF 2025

The following is a diverse half-dozen selections from the 50 feature films that make up this year’s offerings.

Best Bets celebrated 10 years of selections with presentations at Temple Sinai and The Temple, where this cake was part of the refreshments.
Best Bets celebrated 10 years of selections with presentations at Temple Sinai and The Temple, where this cake was part of the refreshments.

These six films, our Best Bets for 2025 at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, were selected from the 22 documentaries and 38 dramas that make up this year’s Silver Anniversary program.

The AJFF opens on Feb. 19 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre with the comedy drama, “Bad Shabbos.” Tickets go on sale for all the films on Feb. 6.

Bernstein: “Come Closer” is an extraordinarily compelling film by first time Israeli director Tom Nesher. It’s the story drawn from Nesher’s real-life experiences of a young woman who loses her brother, Nati, and cannot let go.

What is most striking about the film is that Nesher succeeded in her determination not to make a heavy mournful film but one her younger brother would enjoy, a film full of life and celebration.

“Come Closer” is Tom Nesher’s provocative drama based on her experiences as a young woman who loses her brother and cannot let go.

The film is immersive and sensuous and authentic in its depiction of 20-somethings in the party scene of contemporary Tel Aviv. The film’s plot and characterizations are surprising in all kinds of ways and the performances in this provocative film are fearless. It won four of Israel’s top Ophir Awards including Best Picture.

Bahr: “Quisling The Final Days” is an exceptional drama from Norway that examines the final months in the life of Vidkun Quisling, the leader of Norway during the Nazi occupation. His name has become synonymous with betrayal and traitorous conduct. But in his own mind he is unshakeable in his belief that all that he did, he did for the sake of Norway.

The director, Eric Poppe, has set out to create not just an indictment of this stubborn, self-centered fascist, but a study of what make a mind like Quisling’s work. Poppe’s goal is not unlike that of the Jewish writer and philosopher, Hannan Arendt, who in much of her work probed the authoritarian mind and significantly wrote about it in her coverage of the trial of Adolf Eichman in Jerusalem in 1961. The banality of evil, she called it, and it on full view in Quisling.

Bernstein: “Halisa,” set in the multi-ethnic, impoverished neighborhood in southwest Haifa, is a carefully crafted character study of Sarah, a pediatric doctor, who has been trying to get pregnant for two years while, ironically, spending each day working with children.

The star of the film Noa Koler, gives a master class in acting, and her performance carries the film.

This year’s AJFF program is remarkable for the number of films that portray effectively, movingly, and authentically, women’s experiences in Israel.

There is “Come Closer,” of course. There is also “Pink Lady,” and “Highway 65,” among others. “Halisa” is one more and it has the further distinction of being the work of a first-time woman director, Sophie Artus.

Bahr: “The Property,” a delightful Israeli comedy that’s based on the prize-winning graphic novel set in the years following the end of the Cold War. The veteran Israeli actress, Rivka Michaeli, in a bravura performance, brings along her granddaughter on a trip to Poland, where she hopes to reclaim an apartment abandoned by her family during the Holocaust. Instead, they both find romance in Warsaw and a new appreciation of the past. Family dynamics, with all its twists and turns, is behind much of this humorous film, which teaches us lessons we can all take to heart.

Quisling: The Final Days,” is a profile of Norway’s Nazi leader during World War II.

Bernstein: “Elie Wiesel: Soul On Fire,” is a terrific, wonderfully crafted documentary that illuminates the life’s work of this Nobel Peace Prize winner, which was to share with the world his experiences as a death camp inmate and survivor.

This production uses Wiesel’s own spoken words to talk about his life, his values, and his disillusionment. Particularly marvelous are the black-and-white, ink animations from illustrations by the renowned artist, Mark Podwal.

Obviously, in a time when Holocaust denial and antisemitism is at an all-time high, “Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire,” is a much-needed reminder and inspiration for all of us. This is a true profile in courage.

Bahr: “Tatami,” can best be described by three words which often aren’t used together in the film world. It’s a sports political thriller based on real events. During a championship judo competition in the central Asian country of Georgia, a female Iranian wrestler is pressured by officials back home to withdraw from the competition rather than face an important match with an opponent from Israel.

“Tatami,” is a thriller created by a team of Israeli and Iranian film makers.

To do so would shatter years of preparation and training and she must balance the risks of not following orders and the rewards that match might bring. What gives this suspenseful film of life on the tatami, the judo mat, a special authenticity, is the fact that it is the first film to be jointly produced by Israeli and Iranian creative teams.

Here are four films that are not quite Best Bets, but are strong choices.

Bernstein: “Soda” –  A marvelous depiction of Israel in the 1950s, a period we don’t have often see in films, and a marvelous treatment of the themes of guilt, survival, love and regret.

“Iron Ladies” – This documentary comes under the “who knew?” category.  It’s about a group of British and Irish Jewish housewives and mothers protesting the Soviet Union’s treatment of “Refusenik” Jews, those denied permission to emigrate to Israel.

Bahr: “Of Dogs and Men” – Dani Rosenberg took a camera crew to Kibbutz Nir Oz soon after it was devastated in the attack by Hamas on Oct. 7.  She walks the tragic streets of this community with her teenage star in this moving docudrama.

“The Bibi Files” – If you’re an avid fan of Israel’s prime minister, this may not be for you. But for everyone else this, documentary is a powerful and critical look at Israel’s longtime leader.

Matthew H. Bernstein is Goodrich C. White professor of film and media at Emory University. Bob Bahr has had a lengthy career at CNN and CBS News and writes frequently about media for the AJT.

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