Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival 2014 has something for everyone

Changes have come to the Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival (HKJFF), whose 15th edition kicks off this Saturday, on the 67th anniversary of the adoption of the UN resolution on the creation of a Jewish state.

This year's programme of 27 films, selected by a new selection committee, is the fest's largest yet, and among the most balanced and diverse in years. In addition, the HKJFF has a new co-presenter in the Asia Society and, consequently, a new screening venue in the Asia Society Hong Kong Centre.

HKJFF Society chairwoman Debby Amias, who took over the reins from festival founder Howard Elias last year, is thrilled that the Asia Society has opened its doors to the festival.

"The Asia Society has around 10,000 members in Hong Kong, so that's a lot of potential for us," she says.

Amias estimates that about 70 per cent of attendees at the film festival since its founding in 1999 have been members of the local Jewish community. While this approximately 3,000 strong group remains the festival's primary target audience, both Amias and Michael Every, the first year head of the film selection committee, are keen to grow its non-Jewish audience.

To that end, the HKJFF's film selection committee made a point of including films with Asian content such as Noodle, a drama revolving around a flight attendant who takes custody of a six-year-old Chinese boy who has been inadvertently separated from his mother, and Transit, the Philippines' Oscar entry for this year's best foreign language film, about the plight of a Filipino migrant family living in constant fear of deportation from Israel.