Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 12/11/2017)

However, it also turns the spotlight on the Jewish contribution to showbusiness, with a pair of priceless biopics - Bob Fosse's Lenny (1974) and Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994) - showing alongside such revealing profiles as Alexandra Dean's Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, Gregory Monro's Jerry Lewis: The Man Behind the Clown and Jeffrey Schwarz's The Fabulous Allan Carr, and Danny Ben-Moshe's hidden history, Shalom Bollywood: The Untold Story of Indian Cinema.

As always, UKJFF contains a number of films dealing with the Second World War and four fictional titles stand out. Produced in Britain in 1944, Harold French's Mr Emmanuel draws on a Louis Golding novel to offer a harrowing insight into the hatred, paranoia and fear that ensnared ordinary Germans during the Third Reich. Making for fascinating contrast with Hollywood propagandist outings like Frank Borzage's The Mortal Storm (1940) and Irving Pichel's The Pied Piper (1942), this studied expose reins in the repugnance that screenwriters Golding and Gordon Wellesley evidently feel in order to remind audiences of the implacable evil that they were fighting.

Having spent much of his life working for a Jewish welfare agency after emigrating to Britain from Russia, Felix Aylmer is happy to accept a mission from friends Norman Pierce and Elspeth March to find the missing mother of Peter Mullins, the young Jewish boy they have been fostering since his escape from Nazi Germany. On arriving in Berlin, Aylmer checks into a boarding house and starts making inquiries. However, he arouses the suspicions of the Gestapo, who disregard his humanitarian intentions and accuse him of being complicit in the assassination of a high-ranking officer. He is spared when British singer Greta Gynt (who hides her Jewish origins) recognises him and persuades ambitious lover Wolf Rilla to pull some strings. But, rather than return to home immediately, Aylmer continues his quest to track down Mullins's mother.

Complete with a stark conclusion, this is a moving tale of quiet courage in the face of suspicion, intimidation and cruelty. Giving the best performance of an illustrious career, Aylmer is superb as the dignified exile whose empathy with the plight of a frightened child prompts him to risk his own life. Playing a character possibly inspired by Lillian Harvey - who had been a major musical star in Germany in the 1930s and had been reprimanded for posting bail for gay choreographer Jens Keith - Greta Gynt also impresses, as she reflects upon her relationship with a reichsmarschall. But French creditably judges the tone of the drama and combines well with cinematographer Otto Heller and production designer Norman G. Arnold to give proceedings a disconcertingly expressionist feel without resorting to cliché.

Based on an acclaimed autobiographical novel by Joseph Joffo, Christian Duguay's A Bag of Marbles departs slightly from both the text and Jacques Doillon's 1975 screen adaptation. On occasion, it also comes perilously close to prettifying and sentimentalising the Nazi Occupation of France. But the excellence of the young leads ensures that this would make a worthy companion piece to Louis Malle's exceptional juvenile perspective on the conflict, Au Revoir les Enfants (1987) Aged 12 and 10, siblings Batyste Fleurial and Dorian Le Clech enjoy an idyllic existence playing marbles with their pals in a rough-and-ready Parisian neighbourhood. They live with barber father Patrick Bruel and musician mother Elsa Zylberstein, as well as older brothers César Domboy and Ilian Bergala. But, when France surrenders to the Wehrmacht in the spring of 1940, Bruel informs his children that he intends sending them south to avoid the persecution of the Jewish population that he is sure will follow. In the course of their journey to join Domboy and Bergala in Nice, however, Fleurial and Le Clech have to deny their heritage and also have to use judgement beyond their years to know who to trust and who to fear.

Despite reaching safety, the boys are soon on the road again, after the Germans extend their influence beyond Vichy and their fate is decided by their encounters with Resistance fighter Kev Adams, doctor Christian Clavier and bookshop owner Emile Berling. But, while the focus remains firmly on the innocent pluck of Le Clech and Fleurial, Duguay also explores the anguish endured by Burel and Zylberstein, as they await news of their offspring, while witnessing the growing ferocity of the anti-Semitism that justifies their decision to break up the family. No stranger to this period having directed Pope Pius XII (2010) and Belle & Sebastian: The Adventure Continues (2015), the French-Canadian Duguay captures the mood of an embattled and divided nation. But several secondary characters are stereotypes, while Christophe Graillot's imagery and Armand Amar's score are a little too lush.

The scene switches to Hungary for Ferenc Török's 1945, which joins Lajos Koltai's Fateless (2005), Mark Schmidt's Walking With the Enemy (2013) and László Nemes's Son of Saul (2015) in presenting an unflinching account of the Holocaust and its aftermath. Based on `The Homecoming', a short story by co-scenarist Gábor T. Szántó, this is a sobering study of the contrasting emotions felt by the residents of a rural village, as they are forced to confront their role in the expulsion of their Jewish neighbours.

Opening on a hot August day, the action follows Orthodox Jews Iván Angelus and son Marcell Nagy after they disembark from a train and hire carter Miklós B. Szekely to transport two wooden crates to their former home. Stationmaster István Znamenák rushes to warn the locals of the prodigals' return, but they are preoccupied with the imminent nuptials of pharmacist Bence Tasnádi to peasant Dóra Sztarenki, who likes the idea of climbing the social ladder despite being more attracted to ex-fiancé Tamás Szabó Kimmel. Tasnádi's parents, notary Péter Rudolf and his drug-addled, bedridden wife Eszter Nagy-Kálózy, are well aware of Sztarenki's opportunism. But this seems to be a common trait, as Ági Szirtes is hell bent on preventing drunken husband József Szarvas from surrendering her ill-gotten gains.

With the Red Army lurking in the background as Angelus and Nagy get closer to home, Török generates a palpable sense of increasingly claustrophobic tension that is simmeringly maintained by the excellent ensemble. Keeping dialogue to a minimum, Török and Szántó concentrate more on emotion than character, as the locals are stricken by greed and guilt. Production designer Dorka Kiss and costumier Sosa Juristovszky reinforce the air of authenticity, while Elemér Ragályi's inkily atmospheric monochrome photography is complemented by the haunting melodies in Tibor Szemzö's score. Thus, even though the marriage subplot sometimes feels a little distractingly laboured, this is a potent and poignant insight into an aspect of the Shoah that has rarely been explored on screen.

The mood may be lighter in Sam Garbarski's Bye Bye Germany, but similar themes recur in this adaptation of the first two volumes of German-Swiss co-writer Michel Bergmann's Teilacher trilogy. Rather than witness shame, however, Garbarski concentrates on survivor guilt and, thus, puts a comic spin on the ideas expressed in Francesco Rosi's harrowing version of Primo Levi's memoir, The Truce (1997).

Some 4000 Jews opted to remain in or return to Germany after the war, although a caption suggests that none of them were able to explain their decision to their children. Among them is Moritz Bleibtrau, who lost his parents and brothers in Auschwitz and is determined to revive the family linen business as a mark of defiant respect. He is also aware of the favourable conditions that exist in Frankfurt in 1946 and, despite being denied a licence to sell door-to-door by the occupying authorities, he recruits Mark Ivanir and Vaclav Jakoubek from the displacement camp where he resides to play on the emotions of the war-scarred civilian population in order to separate them from their cash. However, Bleibtrau is also under investigation by US Special Agent Antje Traue, who has discovered that camp commandant Christian Kmiotek had been so amused by his quick wit that he had mentioned him to Adolf Hitler.

Ably switching between comic doorstep scams, unsettling flashbacks and audacious plans to exact revenge upon a newspaper vendor who burnt down a synagogue, Garbarski avoid trivialising or sensationalising his material. But, while the performances are admirable and the evocation of the postwar mindset is capably captured, Virginie Saint-Martin's photography, Véronique Sacrez's production design and Nathalie Leborgne's costumes are a touch too polished and, consequently, detract from the grittiness of the drama and the bleakness of the humour.

Turning to actuality, Peter and Harriet Gordon Getzels relate the remarkable story of Zuzana Ružicková in Zuzana: Music Is Life, which proves a fitting tribute to the Czech harpsichordist, who died on 27 September at the age of 90. Born in Plzen to the owner of a department store, Ružicková had started taking piano lessons at the age of nine after recovering from pneumonia. In 1942, however, she was interned with her family in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where she had continued her musical education before being transferred to Auschwitz with her mother. Advised to lie about her age, Ružicková managed to make herself sufficiently useful to remain off the death lists. When she was finally condemned to die, however, her execution date coincided with D-Day and not only was she spared, but she was also sent to Hamburg as a forced labourer.

Having been liberated from Bergen-Belsen in April 1945 with bubonic plague and severely damaged hands, Ružicková found herself at risk from the anti-Semites in the newly installed Communist Party. Indeed, she tried to dissuade composer Viktor Kalabis from marrying her. But, even though they were kept under surveillance, the pair were allowed to pursue their careers after Ružicková won the prestigious ARD International Music Competition in Munich in 1956. She had been scared of bumping into some of her wartime persecutors, but her triumph gave her a certain cachet within Czechoslovakia as she was able to perform abroad in order to bring in much-needed revenue.

Recalling her experiences with a mix of sober reflection and wry wit, Ružicková takes great pride in having been the first artist to record all of Johann Sebastian Bach's harpsichord works and in having been able to mentor talents like Mahan Esfahani. But she retains a modesty and a vivacity that makes this such an engaging study, whose value is boosted by the access that the husband-and-wife film-makers were granted to the Czech television archives.

The spotlight falls on a very different kind of artistic couple in Ema Ryan Yamazaki's Monkey Business: The Adventures of Curious George's Creators. Narrated by Sam Waterston and punctuated with delightful animations by Jacob Kafka, this will delight fans of the mischievous monkey immortalised by Hans and Margret Rey, whose own lives are packed with exploits that would beggar belief if they appeared in a fictional storyline.

Born Hans Augusto Reyersbach in Hamburg, Hans first met Margret at a birthday party for her sister. Yet, despite hailing from wealthy Jewish families, the pair had fallen on hard times by the time they bumped into each other again in Brazil, where Hans had found a job selling bathroom. Marrying in 1935, the couple settled in Paris, where, four years later, they published the children's book, Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys. Drawn by Hans, the tale of Cecily Giraffe and a monkey named Mother Pamplemoose might not have led to anything had not the Reys taken a shine to a secondary character called Curious George.

Fleeing Montmartre on homemade bicycles after the Nazi invasion, Hans and Margret managed to cross the Pyrenees into Spain and passed through Portugal and Brazil before finding sanctuary in the United States. In their luggage was the manuscript for Curious George's first solo story and Yamazaki outlines how the illustration style was changed from watercolours to cartoons and how this helped the scampish simian and the Man with the Yellow Hat capture the imagination of young audiences. She also speaks to neighbours from Cambridge, Massachusetts, who recall how Hans used to delight in reading to kids, while the more pragmatic Margret scolded him to focus on his work.

We stay in Occupied France for Trevor Graham's Monsieur Mayonnaise, which follows his 2012 offering, Make Hummus Not War, to reveal the heroic deeds of Gunter Morawski and future wife Mirka Zelik, who are the parents of Australian film-maker Philippe Mora. Best known for the likes of Mad Dog Morgan (1976), The Marsupials: The Howling III (1987) and Art Deco Detective (1994), Mora has covered some of this ground before in two collaborations with Harald Grosskopf, German Sons (2011) and Three Days in Auschwitz (2015), the latter of which was scored by Eric Clapton. But he expands the search to locate some of the people helped by his later father.

Born in Leipzig, Gunter became a Communist and relocated to Paris in 1930. Having volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War, he survived a plane crash and spent time as a prisoner of war before returning to France. Using the alias Georges Morand, he served with the Maquis alongside legendary mime Marcel Marceau, where Georges hit upon the ingenious plan of smothering wax-covered documents in mayonnaise and hiding them inside baguettes because Gestapo officers hated getting their gloves dirty. Meanwhile, Mirka was detained during the 1942 Vel' d'Hiv round-up and only narrowly avoided transfer from the Pithiviers concentration camp to Auschwitz through the timely intervention of her father, Leon.

She met the newly minted Georges Mora in Paris when she was 17 and they married in 1947. Philippe came along two years later and the family moved to New York before settling in Melbourne, where the Moras played a key role on the cultural scene, with Mirka making her name as an artist, while George became a restaurateur. Mirka remains hale and hearty and is happy to reminisce. But Graham and Mora less successfully concoct a specious noir detective conceit to couch the search for Georges's comrades in arms and those he helped, among them 105 year-old partisan commander Georges Loinget and the noted psychiatrist Henri Parens, who was rescued from the Nazis as a boy.

Another revered parent comes to the fore in A Tale of Love and Darkness, as Natalie Portman makes her debut as a writer-director in playing Amos Oz's tragic mother, Fania. Having striven for eight years to bring Oz's childhood memoir to the screen, Portman captures the domestic atmosphere in Mandatory Palestine with some sensitivity, her insights into the developing political situation and Fania's steady psychological decline are less assured.

Having lived in relative comfort in pre-war Poland, Fania (Portman) struggles to come to terms with the harsher realities of being married to librarian Arieh (Gilad Kehana) in 1940s Jerusalem. While enduring the cold compliments of her mother-in-law, she misses her mother and sisters in Tel Aviv and uses her storytelling sessions with her young son, Amos (Amir Tessler), to warn him of the disappointments and dangers that make up human existence. Amos gets an inkling of this himself when being bullied at school and when he causes an accident while climbing a tree at a party hosted by some Arab friends. But the declaration of UN Resolution 181 in November 1947 makes life tougher still, as the family finds itself having to choose sides in a war that will culminate in the formation of the State of Israel and Fania's overdose suicide at the age of 38. Often opting for a literal presentation of events and rather awkwardly concluding with Alexander Peleg playing and Moni Moshonov voicing the older Amos as he reflects upon his mother's short life, Portman struggles to convey the passion she obviously has for the source material. She also delivers a mannered performance, whether she is fantasising about the kind of strapping partner she would have preferred to the decent, but dull Arieh or regaling Amos with alarming anecdotes about Polish soldiers shooting themselves in the head and gamblers who set themselves alight. Thus, with Fania forming the dramatic focus rather than Amos (who is stiffly played by the debuting Tessler), the narrative often meanders and fails to have the intended emotional and historical impact. Arad Sawat's production design and Slawomir Idziak's photography are admirable, but Nicholas Britell's score sums up the way the picture keeps straining for significance. Events in Palestine also had a marked effect on the long-established Jewish community in Iraq, as Fiona Murphy recalls in her revealing documentary, Remember Baghdad. Marking the centenary of the British invasion of Mesopotamia, this is an intriguing and often disconcerting account of how an enclave that had lived peacefully with its Gentile neighbours for 2600 years became increasingly isolated after the founding of Israel before it being actively persecuted by the Ba'ath Party following the Six-Day War in 1967. Making astute use of personal testimony, home movies, photographs and newsreel, Murphy examines how ostracisation impacted on four Jewish families and shows how one reluctant exile is determined to reclaim a little piece of his homeland.

Over two millennia, Babylon evolved into Shinar, Chaldea, Al-Jazireh, Mesopotamia and, finally, Iraq. During all these changes of name, border and regime, the Jewish population that had arrived in 586 BCE played a key role in the life of Baghdad. Indeed, the Babylonian Talmud was drawn up in the city in the third century AD. But it was only after the British imposed a Hashemite monarchy on Iraq in 1921 that Jews were accepted on equal terms with their Muslim neighbours. This situation didn't last long, however, as the Grand Mufti backed by Nazi Germany began demonising the Jews as British sympathisers and 180 were killed and 2000 more were injured during the violent Farhud that came to be known as Baghdads Kristallnacht.

When American Zionists funded Operation Ezra and Nehemiah in 1951, therefore, 95% of Iraqi Jews were airlifted to Israel. Yet, those who remained enjoyed something of a boom time, with the Dallal family importing tyres, while the Khalatschis sold cars, the Shamashes dealt in property and the Dangoors had a Coca-Cola concession. Indeed, Renée Dangoor was crowned the first Miss Baghdad. But, following the bloody overthrow of the monarchy in 1958 and the growing hostility of the Ba'ath regime following the Arab-Israeli War, the Jewish population declined from 4000 in 1958 to 2000 in 1967, 280 in 1974 and just five today.

Driven by memories of his childhood in the capitals Battaween district, North Londoner Edwin Shuker has set his heart on buying a property in the Kurdish city of Erbil and Murphy follows his odyssey while gathering the recollections of David Dangoor, Eileen, Freddy and David Khalatschi, Salim Fattal, Esperance Ben-Moshe, Danny Dallal, David Shamash, Eli Amir and Zvooloon Hareli. Their stories are poignant and compelling, as they recall a halcyon days and brutal upheavals with a clarity that is tinged with wistfulness, pain and anger.

Amos Gitai first began making films during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, when he used his position with a helicopter rescue unit to shoot 8mm footage. He has since become one of Israel's most lauded and controversial directors and he sets out to ruffle some more feathers in the documentary, West of Jordan River. Returning to the Occupied Territories for the first time since he made Field Diary (1982) in the days before the invasion of Lebanon, Gitai tours the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to canvas opinion on the solution of the Palestinian crisis. He also uses footage from his 1994 interview with Nobel Prize-winning Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to show how far the Israeli authorities have drifted from any possibility of a two-state solution under Benjamin Netanyahu.

Travelling light, Gitai keeps the questions as simple as his technique, as he speaks to residents on both sides of the divide, as well as journalists, activists, politicians and charity workers. He assesses the contributions of organisations like Break the Silence and The Parents Circle, which respectively encourage Israeli troops to discuss their tours of duty in the occupied zones and support Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost loved ones. Gitai also meets with the mother who have been taught how to use their phones to film the violence they see around them by the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, or B'Tselem.

Yet, while there are grounds for optimism, Gitai is dismayed by what he sees in Hebron, the only Palestinian city with an Israeli enclave in its centre. He is also shocked by the intransigence of deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely and the vehemence with which a 10 year-old boy declares his ambition to become a martyr for his people. Occasionally interjecting to express his own frustration, Gitai largely lets the locals do the talking. But few will draw much solace from his observations, as the chasm appears to be as unbridgeable as ever. Few will feel any better after watching Yaniv Berman's Land of the Little People, which echoes William Golding's Lord of the Flies and Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games series in revealing the tightness of the grip that the military mindset has on the Israeli population. Making the transition to fiction after reflecting on his time in the Army Reserve in The Alpha Diaries (2007), Berman teams with Palestinian producer Tony Copti to deliver a damning verdict on Theodor Herzl's declaration: `Men live and die for a flag; it is indeed the only thing for which they are willing to die in masses, provided one educates them to it.'

With their pregnant mothers worrying about the husbands who have been called up to deal with the latest troubles in the Occupied Territories, four friends spend their summer trapping animals to feed to the monster they are convinced lurks somewhere on the abandoned army base across the field from their homes. Although Lior Rochman is accepted as the nominal leader of the band by pals Ido Kestler and Amit Hechter when they build a crossbow to shoot deer, it's the sole girl, Mishel Pruzansky, who has the guts to crush the skull of a weasel they find in one of their snares. Yet, even though he is mercilessly bullied by older brother Nimrod Hochenberg, it's Kestler who steals a 9mm Glock from deserters Ofer Hayoun and Maor Schweitzer - after they take refuge in the camp while awaiting transport to a safe haven - and sparks an all-out war that becomes increasingly savage, as the youngsters put their combat skills into practice with a vicious disregard for any notions of honour. Photographed by Rami Katzav with a jerky handheld camera that reinforces the abrasive intensity generated by Berrman and his cherubic juvenile leads, this is a terrifying treatise on the dehumanising macho culture that makes weaponisation the norm and weakness an unpardonable sin. Production designer Yoel Herzberg sets the tone by contrasting the picture-perfect dwellings with the overgrown fields surrounding the camp and suggesting the threat that lurks in any territory that has not been tamed. But, while Gad Emile Zeitune's score ramps things up somewhat superfluously, there is something chilling about the quartet's Midwich readiness to take a life that they perceive to have no value and their indifference to the suffering that they cause.

Further posturing drives the action in Erez Tadmor's Home Port, which follows his solo debut, Wounded Land (2015), in exploring the theme of corruption. Writing again with Shlomo Efrati - with whom he penned his co-directorial outings with Guy Nattiv (Strangers, 2007 and Magic Men, 2014) and Sharon Maymom (A Matter of Size, 2009) - Tadmor ably captures the sights and sounds around the port of Ashdod to the south of Tel Aviv. But, while he strives to produce a gritty slice of social realism, Tadmor fails to prevent events taking a melodramatic turn.

After three decades as a commercial sea captain, Yoram Hattab decides to take a desk job to repair his relationship with daughter Liron Ben-Shlush, who has just given birth to his first grandchild. Shop steward Shmil Ben Ari is delighted to see Hattab appointed Head of the Marine Department at Ashdod, as he is an old friend of his father and hopes that he will turn a blind eye to some of the more questionable tactics that are employed on the waterfront. However, Hattab is a man of honour and he is determined to clean up the port, even though Ben-Shlush's husband might be involved in the backhand dealing, as might customs supervisor Anna Dubrovisky, who has left her own daughter in the Ukraine to boost her earnings. But, even though he falls heavily for Dubrovisky, Hattab knows he can never betray his principles, even as tensions mount and Ben Ari threatens to bring the docks to a standstill.

Starkly photographed by Ziv Berkovich, this no-nonsense drama struggles to build on a promising premise. Contemplating the effects of graft, privatisation and union agitation on the way Ashdod operates, Tadmor attempts a serious analysis of a provocative topic. But the domestic subplots are too schematic, with Hattab's romance with Dubrovisky clumsily turning on the notion of absentee parenting that also colours his scenes with Ben-Shlush. The performances are earnest and the wider allusion is persuasive. But Tadmor proves unable to prevent an air of inevitability from descending. Another father who regrets a decision involving his child proves key to Nir Bergman's Saving Neta, which has been adapted for the screen by Eran Bar-Gil from his own novel, Iron. Having made such a strong impression with his debut, Broken Wings (2002), Bergman devoted himself to television work in order to spend time with his new twins. But this fourth feature - which comes after Intimate Grammar (2010) and Yona (2014) - has the feeling of four episodes of a serial being woven together by a linking theme that doesn't quite catch the imagination.

In the first vignette, army officer Rotem Abuhab is too busy trying to impress her superiors by training a batch of new recruits to react when teenage daughter Emma Alfi Aharon complains of a stomach ache. Her hesitation is mirrored by that of Naama Arlaky, a lesbian cellist who is undergoing fertility treatment while uncertain whether she wants to have a baby with girlfriend Kim Gordon. Another major family decision is hanging over Irit Kaplan and Kobi Maor when they take their children on a picnic to break the news of their divorce. But they are not alone in their indecision, as business executive Neta Riskin, who risks missing her daughter's bat mitzvah in America to attend her mother's funeral, returns to find that her kibbutz neighbours oppose her plan to put her intellectually disabled sister, Nuria Dina Lozinsky, in a care home.

The enigmatic figure linking the plotlines is Benny Avni, a bear of a man who flits in and out of the action before his presence is finally explained. His situation is undeniably affecting, while his interaction with Arlaky and Riskin proves significant. But, in touching on family, fate and femininity, Bergman and Bar-Gil never quite manage to solve the problem of focusing attention on a new story while the audience is still digesting the ramifications of its predecessor. The ensemble playing is solid, but, even though the tales were filmed in their requisite seasons, Lutz Reitemeier's visuals are rather perfunctory.

The imagery is similarly serviceable in Ofir Raul Graizer's The Cakemaker. But the debuting director judges the tone of this potentially maudlin melodrama to a tee and, thus, avoids trivialising its delicately balanced social, cultural, queer and spiritual themes. However, as was the case with John Goldschmidt in Dough (in which Jonathan Pryce plays a struggling London baker whose business booms when he hires dope-dealing Muslim assistant Jerome Holder), Graizer often resorts to contrivance to keep the plot moving.

Surprised when Israeli businessman Roy Miller keeps returning to his Berlin café to buy treats for his wife and son, pastry chef Tim Kalkhof becomes seriously smitten when Miller turns his monthly trips into trysts. But, when Miller suddenly falls silent and Kalkhof discovers that he has been killed in a traffic accident, the grieving baker decides to travel to Jerusalem and inveigle himself into the life of his lover's widow, Sarah Adler. Mother-in-law Sandra Sade welcomes the newcomer with open arms when Adler impulsively offers him work in her own struggling eaterie. But Miller's ultra-religious brother, Zohar Strauss, is concerned about losing his kosher certificate and becomes increasingly suspicious when Adler develops feelings for the taciturn German.

Accompanied by Dominique Charpentier's sweetly subtle score, this has its moments of unforced charm, as it dares to suggests that emotionality can play a crucial part in sexual attraction. But, in striving hard not to cause too much offence in challenging sexual or religious orthodoxy, it also skates by on sketchy characterisation and a number of clumsy plot twists that strain credibility before being resolved with unfeasible ease. Morover, despite cinematographer Omri Aloni's best efforts to generate some soft-focus kitchen magic, the cakes and biscuits that Kalkhof prepares with such reverence look singularly unappetising, especially when they are decorated with such kitschy confectionary.

Also on show during UKJFF 2017 are such fictional features as Penny Marshall's Awakenings (1990), Sandra Goldbacher's The Governess (1998), Andrei Konchalovsky's Paradise, Avi Nesher's Past Life, Francesco Amato's Let Yourself Go!, Radu Mihaileanu's The History of Love, Jacob Berger's Un Juif pour l'exemple, Menno Meyjes's The Hero, Cyril Gelblat's Dad in Training, Sophie Brooks's The Boy Downstairs, Roee Florentin's And Then She Arrived, Dani Rosenberg's Milk & Honey, Matan Yair's Scaffolding, Emil Ben-Shirmon's The Women's Balcony and Danny Ben-Moshe's My Mother's Lost Children, as well as documentaries like Jessie Auritt's Supergirl, Édith Jorisch's The Heir, Bettina Ehrhardt's Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds: The Conductor Zubin Mehta, Sophie Bramly's Taam, A Taste of Rue des Rosiers, Marina Willer's Red Trees, Yoni Bentovim's 17 Beginnings of Talia, Moran Ifergan's Wall and Yonatan Nir's Wilfrid Israel: The Essential Link.