This November, the Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival (HKJFF) invites audiences to a cinematic world of sharp comedy, family secrets, impossible choices and unexpected tenderness. Returning from 7 to 15 November 2026, this year’s programme spans New York, Amsterdam, Bolivia, Israel and the Catskills, bringing together star-studded features, award-winning dramas and unflinching documentaries. From true stories of quiet courage to comedies about chaotic families, HKJFF continues to offer Hong Kong audiences the particularities of Jewish and Israeli life through the universal language of film and emotions.
The Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival
La Bonne Étoile (Lucky Star) — Opening Film
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The Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival
Still from “Lucky Star”
Still from “Fantasy Life”
Still from “Oxygen”
Michel Cojot with his sons Olivier and Stephane
Still from “The Sea”
Still from "Double Happiness"
Still from "Babka"
Opening this year's Festival is ”Lucky Star”, a bold and disarming wartime comedy from Hollywood-loved French actor and filmmaker Pascal Elbé. Set in 1940s Nazi-occupied France, the film follows a desperate man who convinces his family to pose as Jews, hoping it will help them escape to safety. Magritte Award-winning actor Benoît Poelvoorde brings warmth and wit to the role, as the reckless act of desperation slowly becomes something far more profound: a confrontation with his own deep-seated ignorance and prejudice. Reminiscent of “Life Is Beautiful” and “Jojo Rabbit”, Pascal Elbé blends comedy with complex humanity, tracing how ordinary people are undone and remade by extraordinary times.
Selected for the official programme of the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival 2025 and distributed across Europe, “Lucky Star” is a warm, morally sharp and surprisingly life-affirming film set in one of history's darkest chapters.
Still from “Lucky Star”
Fantasy Life
One of this year's top highlights, "Fantasy Life" is the debut feature from writer-director-actor Matthew Shear. This contemporary American comedy drama follows Sam Stein, an adrift New York paralegal who, after losing his job, is drawn into babysitting his psychiatrist's grandchildren. He soon finds himself pulled into the orbit of a wealthy but unhappy Jewish family, and in an unexpected connection with the children's mother, a former actress contending with marriage, motherhood and the ambitions she has set aside.
Featuring a star-filled cast including Amanda Peet ("Togetherness", "The Whole Nine Yards"), two-time Oscar nominee Judd Hirsch ("Independence Day" film series, "The Fabelmans"), Tony Award winner Andrea Martin ("Pippin"), Zosia Mamet ("Girls") and Emmy Award winner Holland Taylor ("The Morning Show", "Two and a Half Men"), "Fantasy Life" captures a distinctly contemporary Jewish sensibility while exploring the fragile ways people try to care for one another.
Still from “Fantasy Life”
Oxygen
Winner of the Best Israeli Feature Award at the 2025 Jerusalem Film Festival, the anti-war film "Oxygen" stars Dana Ivgy as Anat, a schoolteacher and mother caught in Israel’s sandwich generation: her son serving in the army, her father an elderly war hero grappling with his own past. When war erupts and her son volunteers for a tour of duty in Lebanon, Anat’s love and fear push her toward radical choices, in a bold exploration of maternal devotion and obsession.
Still from “Oxygen”
To Kill a Nazi
After his father disappears during the Second World War, French businessman Michel Cojot sets out to learn the truth. What he discovers is shocking: the Gestapo signature on his father’s arrest papers belongs to Klaus Barbie, the infamous "Butcher of Lyon." Posing as a journalist, Cojot travels to Bolivia and confronts Barbie face to face in a back alley in La Paz. The encounter changes the course of his life, eventually drawing him into Israeli intelligence and the planning of the Entebbe Raid, one of history’s most audacious hostage rescues.
Narrated by eight-time Emmy nominee Jason Alexander and directed by award-winning filmmaker Boaz Dvir, "To Kill a Nazi" is a thrilling true story of revenge, heroism and redemption.
Michel Cojot with his sons Olivier and Stephane
The Sea
"The Sea" follows twelve-year-old Khaled, who has lived his entire life just miles from the Mediterranean, yet never seen the sea. When Israeli authorities deny him entry at a border checkpoint, his disappointment turns to dangerous resolve, and he slips across the border alone to reach the water. As Khaled chases the horizon, his father Ribhi risks his job and his freedom to find his son before the authorities do.
The feature is the winner of five Ophir Awards including Best Picture and selected as Israel’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards.
Still from “The Sea”
Matchmaking 3 — Closing Film
"Matchmaking 3" reunites Hong Kong audiences with Erez Tadmor, the director behind last year’s HKJFF opening film "Soda," for the newest chapter in his beloved Israeli comedy franchise. Maor Schweitzer and Niv Sultan return as Baruch and Ruth, an ultra-Orthodox couple from Bnei Brak preparing for their own wedding, whose plans are upended when a wealthy New York financier offers a fortune to arrange a match for his daughter. What follows is a sharp, affectionate comedy about ambition, tradition and the give and take of the shidduch (matchmaking) system, played out between Bnei Brak and Manhattan.
Shorts Selection
The Festival also features a diverse lineup of short films. In "Double Happiness" from writer-director Shari Albert, after 40 years of Christmas dinners at the same Chinese restaurant, a spicy New York Jewish widow and the constrained restaurant owner find themselves drawn into an unexpected late-in-life romance. Warm, funny and deeply felt, it is a love letter to food, tradition and the quiet intimacy built around a table, with particular resonance for Hong Kong. While in "Babka", Serena Dykman’s tender seventeen-minute portrait, a recently blind Orthodox Jewish baker in Hasidic Williamsburg, develops an unlikely friendship with a queer, Catholic, Latino guide dog trainer to navigate life with his guide dog and save his beloved bakery, exploring deeply about dignity, access and belonging.
Still from "Double Happiness"
Still from "Babka"
Across nine days, HKJFF invites local audiences to an exciting glimpse into the many facets of Jewish culture and inspires conversation across homeland, history and heritage. Tickets will be available from 2 October.
All non-English language films will be screened with English subtitles. For full programme
details: https://hkjff.org/
PROGRAMME DETAILS
Festival Dates: 7 - 15 November 2026
Venues:
Golden Scene Cinema
Location: 2 Catchick St, Kennedy Town
Emperor Cinemas, Entertainment Building
Location: 30 Queen's Road Central, Central
Emperor Cinemas, Times Square
Location: 1 Matheson St, Causeway Bay
Individual Tickets: HK$120 (Adults); HK$100 (Students and Seniors)
Opening Night Tickets with post-screening party: HK$380 (Adults); $280 (Students and
Seniors)
All-Access Festival Pass: HK$1,800
