MUMBAI: The 14th UK Jewish Film Festival, that goes underway from 4 to 21 October, will have the presence of stars like Maureen Lipman, David Baddiel, Davina McCall, Boy George, Al Murray and Graham Norton.

This year‘s festival will have 66 films selected from more than 350 entries. The successful films will be screened at 10 cinemas in London, including the Tricycle in Kilburn, the British Film Institute, Ciné Lumiere in Kensington and the Barbican. There will be as many as 47 UK premieres of films that have been drawn from 16 countries. 

One such UK premiere will be that of The Round Up that is based on the mass arrest and round-up in the Paris velodrome of 13,000 Jews including 4,000 children by the French police in July 1942. A box-office hit in France, the film stars Jean Reno, Mélanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds) and, amazingly, a real-life survivor who is now 80 years old.

The festival also showcases new talent, most intriguing is A Jewish Girl in Shanghai, a Chinese animated film based on Wu Lin‘s graphic novel about the Holocaust. It tells the little-known story of Little Vienna, a area of China‘s most populated city in which some 30,000 Jewish refugees sought shelter during the Second World War.

Among the comedies on offer will be the UK premiere of Arab Labour made from an Israeli series by Sayed Kashua.