The Reel Deal: GIJFF

by Donna Adiri

11 November 2026

Photo Credit: Thomas Ruhland Photography

The Reel Deal: GIJFF

by Donna Adiri

11 November 2026

For the past year, it has been a privilege to be part of Team Coolturalia and a contributor to the Cool Bytes page. Over the course of that year I have met artists, writers, heads of NGOs, leaders of international Geneva, advocates working on issues that matter, entrepreneurs and more. Each person so unique, most with full-time jobs and these incredible projects on the side that make you wonder how they do it all. So now it is my turn. Here is my story, and the story of the GIJFF: how it began, and where it is today.

Here is my story, and the story of the GIJFF: how it began, and where it is today. I am a film lover from a young age. I grew up in a small town in New Jersey and lived next door to a place called Video Plus. This was during the heyday of VHS and Blockbuster, when spending the better part of your Saturday night picking out a movie was half the fun of watching it. The ritual of it. The anticipation. That feeling never really left me. Fast forward twenty years. I moved to Geneva in 2006. There was still a video store, just about, but it was fading. I was a mother of two young children, with a third on the way, when an opportunity came to light in 2010: a newly formed Jewish film festival in Geneva, started by a businessman and philanthropist who had moved here from London, where he had been a major sponsor of the same event. He wanted to build something in Geneva. I wanted to be part of it.

So there it started. Around thirteen films, screened at the Ciné17 and the Grütli. A small team in London and me here in Geneva, running around, printing flyers and programmes, managing everything on site. Paper tickets. It was small, but it was alive. People were discovering it, and over time it became a cultural event etched into Geneva’s calendar.

In those early years the UK team, vastly experienced, would travel to Geneva each month. I learned an enormous amount from their work, their approach, their standards. I attended their festival in London every year, and each time I came back with something new. They have just celebrated thirty years, which is a remarkable milestone. We are at fifteen. I cannot imagine us at thirty, but that is something to look forward to.

“It is the love of culture and cinema that drives it, and the knowledge that what we are doing is contributing something real to the city”

Photo Credit: Donna Adiri

In 2015, the festival had grown, not only in audience but in support. The City of Geneva, the Loterie Romande, local businesses and private individuals all came behind this event. Our education programme grew too, bringing schools to see films that would not normally reach Geneva cinemas. That is really what the festival is, at its core: a chance to see unique films that simply would not come here otherwise, and to meet the filmmakers who made them, in person.

When COVID closed the cinemas in 2020, we adapted and moved the festival online. It was not without its challenges, but people found a way to watch from home, and the audience stayed with us.

In 2022, we became a Geneva-based association, separating from our London counterpart and establishing ourselves as a fully independent event rooted in this city. That felt like a turning point. Something that had started as a volunteer coordination job had become something much larger, and much more mine.

Over sixteen years my role has evolved from coordinator to manager to executive producer to director. We are still a very small team, and that has never changed. But what this experience has given me is immeasurable: the skills, the connections, the immersion in Geneva’s cinema life. I have learned from cinema owners, distributors, producers and filmmakers. I have come to understand that this is a world that is always changing, always evolving, and that you have to raise the bar each time or risk being left behind.

Now we travel to the bigger festivals: Berlinale, Cannes, Locarno, Zurich. There is something humbling about being in those rooms, surrounded by the people who shape world cinema, knowing that what you bring back to Geneva matters. It comes down to network, to connections, and above all to passion. Nobody tells you to push harder or aim higher. That has to come from within. It is the love of culture and cinema that drives it, and the knowledge that what we are doing is contributing something real to the city.

“Each year is like a completely new book. You know how it is going to end, but getting there is an entirely new journey from the start.”

Before any screening happens, I get to watch over eighty films a year with our programmer and programming committee. We discuss, we debate, we disagree. It is a year-long process, and one of the great joys of the job. The breadth of Jewish culture, the range of stories being told, the talent behind them — it is deeper and richer than most people realise, and it surprises me every single year. We receive submissions from around the world and I wish I could show so many more of them. Each year is like a completely new experience. You know how it is going to end, but getting there is an entirely new journey from the start. That feeling of discovery is what keeps it fresh, what makes it impossible to treat as routine.

What I did not expect, sixteen years ago, was the audience. I know many of them by name now. To see them walk into a screening room year after year, to speak with them afterwards, to hear what a film meant to them, that is an extraordinary thing. It never gets ordinary.

This year’s festival runs from the 21st to the 29th of November, and there is genuinely something for everyone. From James Gray’s Paper Tiger, receiving its Swiss Romande premiere, to Avi Nesher’s Our Loves as our centrepiece film, to Volker Schlöndorff’s Bois de Klara closing the festival on the final night. Sixteen years in, and I am still as excited as I was standing in that small cinema in 2011, hoping people would show up.

They do. Every year, they do.

All tickets and information at gijff.org.

The Reel Deal: GIJFF

by Donna Adiri

The Reel Deal: GIJFF

by Donna Adiri

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The Reel Deal: GIJFF

by Donna Adiri

The Reel Deal: GIJFF

by Donna Adiri

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