The 5th Moscow Jewish Film Festival is an annual international film festival, which aims to gather in the program features, documentaries, shorts and animated films on the subject of Jewish culture, history and national identity and contemporary problems.
The festival was held in Moscow from 23 to 30 June 2019 at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Documentary Film Center, cinema GUM, KARO 11 cinema Oktyabr, Moskino Zvezda, Moskino Kosmos, Knizhniki and Moscow Jewish Community Center.
Opening film
The ceremony opened with the concert of the composer Alexei Aigui and Ensemble 4'33'. The welcome speech at the Opening ceremony was held by the President of Jury Timur Weinstein and American director Shawn Snyder presented his film To Dust as the Russian premiere and the opening film of the 5th Moscow Jewish Film Festival.
Jury
Timur Weinstein — President of the jury General producer of the NTV television company, member of the International Academy of EMMY, Academy of Russian Television, Russian Academy of Cinematographic Arts.
Main Competition
Artem Vasilyev — Producer, CEO of METRAFILMS Studio. Producer of such films as "Paper Soldier", "A Room and a Half", "Act of Nature", "Under the Electric Clouds", "Anna's War", "Dovlatov", "The Humorist". Nigina Sayfullaeva — Russian film director, screenwriter and producer. The creator of such films as "About love. Only for adults", "What is my name", "Loyalty". Stephen Mao — American film producer and President of Studio Mao a film production, distribution, and finance company. Jacqueline Semha Gmach — Author of From Bomboloni to Bagel: A Story of Two Worlds. A board member of San Diego Organizations, Anti-Defamation League, Agency for Jewish Education, American Technion Society, etc. She is a project director of USC Shoah Foundation. Nick Holdsworth — Writer, journalist and filmmaker with 25 years’ experience of covering Russian and Eastern European affairs. Nikita Lavretski — Film director. Nikita Lavretski made his feature film debut with ‘Belarusian Psycho’ which received the Best Belarusian Film Award at the 2015 Minsk International Film Festival Listapad. His 2019 feature ‘Sasha's Hell’ was selected by Moscow International Film Festival. Svetlana Ustinova — Theatre and film actress, producer, scriptwriter. Graduated Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, with Vladimir Grammatikov as professor. In 2018 she was accepted to Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre's troupe.
Documentary Film Competition Jury
Yevgeny Gindilis — Russian film and TV producer. A member of the European Film Academy and Kinosouyz. He is the Head of CentEast Moscow; Executive Director of the Red Square Screenings film market. Co-Founder of Kinopoisk film market. General producer of TVINDIE Film Production. Georgy Molodtsov — Director, producer and VR content expert. Board member of the Russian Documentary Guild. As director and creative director at the Social Advertising Laboratory he implemented more than thirty social-issue campaigns. Denis Kataev — Journalist, host of the information service, as well as programs "Artificial selection" and "Lectures" on the Rain TV channel.
Narrative Short Film Competition Jury
Kirill Vasilyev — Director of the film "Well, Hello, Oksana Sokolova," the TV series "Fitness." The winner of the film festival “Koroche” 2016. Yanna Buryak — Producer, founder of the Mimesis film company and co-founder of the distribution company VOSTOK. Mimesis' most successful films are: Fedor's Journey Through Moscow At The Turn Of The XXI Century and "Milk". Dmitry Yakunin — Producer, director of the Youth Center of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia, Secretary of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia, General Producer of the All-Russian Project "Short Film’s Day", Director of the Moscow Film Festival "Budem Zhit".