JIFF: Kafka's Last Trial

Kafka's Last Trial

“This well-made movie may make you want to pick up Kafka’s work again.” – The Jerusalem Post

Australian Premiere

In his will, Franz Kafka instructed his friend and fellow writer Max Brod to destroy his unfinished works, including the manuscripts for his now celebrated novels The Trial, The Castle and Amerika. But Brod, in a notorious act of “benevolent betrayal”, refused and had Kafka’s works published between 1925 and 1935. Nearly a century later, an international lawsuit probes the rightful ownership of Kafka’s manuscripts. Do they belong in Israel, where Kafka dreamed of living but never entered, or Germany where his three sisters perished in the Holocaust?

An ironically Kafkaesque tale of a family pitted against faceless bureaucracy, Kafka’s Last Trial unravels the knots of this convoluted legal battle, playing out like a detective thriller full of unexpected twists and turns. This riveting documentary is a well-constructed collage of expressionistic animation, testimonials and Kafka’s original texts, which took home Best Documentary at the Haifa Film Festival.

Rating

Unclassified 15+

Duration

72 min

Country

Israel

Language

English, Hebrew, German

Director

Eliran Peled