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Holocaust drama ‘The Zone of Interest’ wins runner-up prize at Cannes Film Festival
(JTA) — “The Zone of Interest,” a sobering drama about a Nazi commander’s behavior during the Holocaust, won the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, as one of several new arthouse films about the legacy of antisemitism that premiered at the festival.
Based on a novel by Martin Amis, the film is a fictional portrayal of the life of Rudolph Hoess, the real-life Auschwitz death camp commandant. It shows his family’s efforts to live blissfully unaware of the atrocities their patriarch is inflicting on Jews a short distance away from them. The movie was directed by British Jewish filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, who has amassed a cult following for cerebral movies such as “Under The Skin” and “Birth.”
The Grand Prix is essentially the runner-up prize at the historic film festival on the French Riviera, which this year was bestowed by a jury including Oscar-nominated Swedish director Ruben Östlund and the actors Brie Larson and Paul Dano. The director Quentin Tarantino, who is married to an Israeli singer and relocated to Tel Aviv during the pandemic, presented Glazer with the Grand Prix during the festival’s awards ceremony.
Observers at the event had thought the movie, which premiered in competition to rave reviews on the same day Amis died of esophageal cancer, had a shot at the top prize, the Palme d’Or. It was competing against nearly two dozen films, including “Kidnapped,” a historical drama about the Catholic Church’s kidnapping of Italian Jewish child Edgardo Mortara in the 19th century.
Glazer shot “The Zone of Interest” on location at Auschwitz, in German, and he told reporters at the festival that he hoped the film adaptation would “talk to the capacity within each of us for violence, wherever you’re from.”
The film will be released this fall by specialty distributor A24, which is also handling the release of another boundary-pushing film about antisemitism that premiered at Cannes: “Occupied City,” a four-hour documentary about the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen. The film is co-produced by McQueen’s wife Bianca Stigter, who also made the acclaimed Holocaust documentary “Three Minutes: A Lengthening.”
Also premiering at the festival out of the main competition was “The Goldman Case,” a courtroom drama based on the real-life 1975 trial of left-wing French Jewish radical Pierre Goldman, who claimed he was a victim of antisemitic targeting by police and who was later murdered. “Anselm,” a 3D documentary about the German painter Anselm Kiefer, who frequently addresses his country’s Nazi past in his work, also debuted at the festival.
Iris Knobloch, the new president of the Cannes Film Festival, is Jewish and is also the first woman to hold the position. Her mother Charlotte Knobloch has for decades been president of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria.
Iris Knoblach told Indiewire at the festival that her parents, both Holocaust survivors, had instilled a love of movies in her.
“My parents went to the movies almost two times a week, because they didn’t have a youth, so it was a way to recapture those moments,” she said, adding that this experience taught her “that cinema is an important opportunity to get to a broad audience with the right message.”
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The post Holocaust drama ‘The Zone of Interest’ wins runner-up prize at Cannes Film Festival appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Lindsey Graham urges Israel not to strike Iranian oil depots even as he says he helped make war happen
(JTA) — Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has called on Israel to rein in its attacks on Iranian oil infrastructure, marking a rare note of caution from a Republican lawmaker who has said he helped push the United States to join Israel in waging war against Iran.
In a post on X on Sunday, Graham praised Israel for its role in the war before adding that “there will be a day soon that the Iranian people will be in charge of their own fate, not the murderous ayatollah’s regime.”
“In that regard, please be cautious about what targets you select,” continued Graham. “Our goal is to liberate the Iranian people in a fashion that does not cripple their chance to start a new and better life when this regime collapses. The oil economy of Iran will be essential to that endeavor.”
Graham’s post linked to an Axios article that reported that the United States was alarmed by Israeli strikes over the weekend that targeted 30 Iranian fuel depots. On Monday, U.S. gas prices rose to their highest levels since 2024.
The warning from Graham, an ally of President Donald Trump and staunch supporter of Israel, comes days after the Republican hawk told the Wall Street Journal that he had played a key role in urging Trump to strike Iran.
Prior to the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, Graham made several trips to Israel where he met with members of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whom he said he coached on how to lobby Trump to strike Iran.
“They’ll tell me things our own government won’t tell me,” Graham told the newspaper.
On Monday, Graham also directed his criticism at Saudi Arabia’s decision to stay on the sidelines of the campaign against Iran.
“It is my understanding the Kingdom refuses to use their capable military as a part of an effort to end the barbaric and terrorist Iranian regime who has terrorized the region and killed 7 Americans,” wrote Graham in a post on X Monday. “Question – why should America do a defense agreement with a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that is unwilling to join a fight of mutual interest?”
The post Lindsey Graham urges Israel not to strike Iranian oil depots even as he says he helped make war happen appeared first on The Forward.
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Belgian officials investigating synagogue explosion as possible act of terrorism
(JTA) — Belgian officials are investigating an explosion in front of a synagogue in Liège early Monday as a possible act of terrorism.
The explosion, which took place at 4 a.m., damaged the door of the historic neo-Romanesque synagogue and blew out the windows of multiple buildings across the street. No injuries were reported.
A range of Belgian politicians, including the prime minister and the mayor of Liège, characterized the explosion as act of antisemitism.
“Antisemitism is an attack on our values and our society, and we must fight it unequivocally,” Prime Minister Bart de Wever said in a statement. “We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community in Liege and across the country.”
The explosion comes amid a surge of concern about possible attacks by agents associated with the Iranian regime, against which the United States and Israel launched a war last week. Iran has a long record of supporting attacks on Jewish targets abroad, including two bombings in the 1990s in Argentina that killed more than 100 people at the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center. Now, with Iran being pummeled at home, watchdogs are warning that it might lash out through its Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, responsible for attacks abroad.
Azerbaijan said Friday that it had foiled multiple terror attacks planned by Iranian agents on Jewish sites. In London, four men were arrested last week for allegedly spying on the Jewish community for Iran, with the intent of planning attacks against the community. And a string of shootings at synagogues in Toronto has ignited concern in Canada, too.
Iranian agents have taken aim at non-Jewish targets, too. On Friday, a Pakistani man who prosecutors said had been directed by Iran’s IRGC was convicted of plotting to assassinate President Donald Trump.
The attack in Liège, in the primarily French-speaking Wallonia province, comes amid a range of recent developments that have unsettled Belgian Jews, who number approximately 30,000. They include antisemitic carnival caricatures in the city of Aalst; a ban on ritual slaughter preventing the local production of kosher meat; and an ongoing row between U.S. and Belgian officials over Jewish circumcision practices. The attack also follows a 2014 shooting in which a gunman associated with the Islamic State, a rival to Iran’s Islamic Republic, shot four people to death at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.
A spokesperson for the Liège police described the effects to the area as “only material damage” to the 1899 building. Rabbi Joshua Nejman told local media that he was hoping that security footage would reveal the perpetrator.
“I’m going to try to calm my heart, because it is beating faster and faster this morning,” said Nejman, who said he had been at the synagogue for 25 years.
“Liege is home to a very small but vibrant Jewish community where I personally grew up,” Eitan Bergman, vice president of the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organisations in Belgium, told Reuters. “Today, the feelings among our community members are a mixture of sadness, worry and profound shock.”
Liege’s mayor, Willy Demeyer, praised the synagogue community to RBTF, Belgium’s French-language national broadcaster. He added, “We cannot allow foreign conflicts to be imported into our city.”
The post Belgian officials investigating synagogue explosion as possible act of terrorism appeared first on The Forward.
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The Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life, 2025
In honor of The Algemeiner‘s 12th annual gala, we are proud to present our “J100” list — 100 individuals who have positively influenced Jewish life over the past year.