I've only seen two of the 15 award-winning films selected for this year's Winnipeg International Jewish Film Festival, but if they were any indication, the quality remains as high as ever - both films were heartfelt, diverse accounts of the Jewish experience that, quite literally, span the globe and the reaches of time.

Notable as the first Austrian Oscar winner for best foreign film at last year's Academy Awards is Stefan Ruzowitsky's The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher).

It's based on the true life experiences of Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), a European Jew struggling to survive at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp during the course of the Second World War. This cunningly talented individual was one of the world's best money forgers in pre-war times. As forced mastermind of Operation Bernhard (a secret Nazi plan to disrupt the British economy with conterfeit currency), he's only given slightly better quarters in the camp in exchange for his services. At every turn, his callous prison keepers treat him as if he was an animal, though there's a unique relationship and funny kind of respect between Salomon and the man who arrested him back in 1939.

Also taking part in the illegal organization is Adolf Burger (August Diehl), whose book, The Devil's Workshop, serves as the basis for the film.

Ruzowitsky frames the action in tenser moments with a paranoia-inducing handheld technique to instill some of the terror his characters are going through in every waking moment. One highlight has one of the team's Nazi captors reading a telegram about whether or not their first efforts in forging phony tender were successful - the ratcheted-up suspense in the sequence knows no equal, and is one hint as to why the film garnered so many accolades.

At the other end of the spectrum is Israeli filmmakers Shahar Cohen and Halil Efrat's warm-hearted documentary account of Cohen's father's war experiences as a soldier in the Second World War's Combat Jewish Brigade, titled Souvenirs.

In this film, the 82-year-old father, Shlomo Cohen, has but one wish left for his lifetime: grandchildren. But as Shahar's German girlfriend recently broke up their relationship, and his other son, Tali, is 40 and still defiantly single, there's not a lot of hope left for that dream.

While researching and talking to his dad about time spent in the war - Libya for training, Italy for fighting and Holland shortly after the war ended - Shahar is stunned to learn of an affair Shlomo had with a Dutch girl, and the possibility that a 'souvenir' in the form of a bun in the oven remains; there may be grandchildren after all.

The film follows father and son as they travel to war memorials in Italy, and closes with what happens when an ad for a lost sweetheart put in a paper in Holland is answered.

Tickets for the Winnipeg International Jewish Film Festival are $9 for an individual film, $48 for a 6-pack and $100 for a festival pass.

2009 WINNIPEG INTERNATIONAL JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL
March 18 - 31, Asper Jewish Community Campus