The 31st Jewish Film Festival Berlin Brandenburg (JFBB), Germanys largest Jewish film festival, unveiled its line-up Thursday, spotlighting independent features from Israel, the U.S. and Europe depicting Jewish narratives from a global perspective.

The festival kicks off May 6 with Daniel Robbins Bad Shabbos, a dark comedy centered on a chaotic New York Shabbat dinner, which premiered at Tribeca last year and features Kyra Sedgwick, David Paymer, and Method Man. Other feature highlights include Dani Rosenbergs Of Dogs and Men, a docudrama revisiting the aftermath of October 7th, following a woman who returns to her kibbutz just weeks after the attacks in search of her missing dog; and Iveta Grfovs The Hungarian Dressmaker, the story of a Hungarian widow, who hides a Jewish boy from a fascist militia, which was Slovakias official submission to the2025 Oscarsfor bestinternationalfeature. Israeli cinema is well represented at the JFFB again this year, with features including Maya Dreifuss Highway 65, about a small-town cop unraveling a local conspiracy; Tom Neshers Come Closer, the story of a young woman dealing with grief after the death of her brother; and Eid from Yousef Abo Madegem, a drama about a Bedouin man struggling against the constraints of his society and traditions, which is also the first Israeli feature directed by a Bedouin filmmaker.

In the documentary competition, the JFFB will screen Blum: Masters of Their Own Destiny from Oscar-nominated director Jasmila bani (Quo Vadis, Aida?, a profile of Shoah survivor and entrepreneur Emerik Blum; Zvi Landsmans Jacob De Haan: A Voice Out of Time, which revisits the life and assassination, by Zionist paramilitaries, of Jewish, gay, pacifist poet; and Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse, from Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin, a look at the life and career of the famed graphic novelist, author of Maus.

The JFFB has been a fixture of the German-Jewish community in and around Berlin for decades now, but the festival has taken on a new significance in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks and the outbreak of the Israeli-Gaza war. While the JFFB tries to keep the focus on the films, political discussions, about the rise of antisemitism across Europe and debates about alleged war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza, will be unavoidable.

The 2025 JFFB runs May 6-11 in Berlin and Brandenburg. The full program will be released on April 15 at jfbb.info.