There’s a line in Annie Hall where Woody Allen, at his long-ago best, compares the journey of life to the terrible food at a Catskills resort. “Yeah, I know,” one of the diners laments, “and such small portions!” It’s this kind of familiar wit—both funny and sagely aware of the miseries of life—that infuses this year’s Vancouver Jewish Film Festival (October 30 to November 11). In its 21st year, the VJFF is in a contemplative, somewhat gentle mood—even given the fact that the festival, like many arts groups in the province, has just lost its largest source of funding due to the recent gutting of Direct Access grants by the Liberals. By phone, executive director Ian Merkel says that next year they’ll be looking to find an additional $15,000 to make up for the loss.

For those seeking humour, though, the festival delivers. Its funniest and perhaps most politically astute effort is Arab Labor (November 3 and 5), a television series made in Israel by Sayed Kashua, an Israeli-born Palestinian. “It’s about how Israelis see Arabs and how Arabs see themselves in Israel,” Merkel says. The series satirizes the Israeli-Arab divide within Israel and, particularly, the struggles facing any middle-class Arab trying to get ahead. The show’s real mileage comes out of challenging and lampooning stereotypes of Arab-Israelis—and its satirical and popular success in Israel may be owed to the fact that, like The Simpsons at its best, it offers viewers a chance to laugh at something both incredibly stupid and incredibly smart.

For some toe-tapping with your funny, try Hey, Hey, It’s Esther Blueburger (November 1 and 10), which chronicles its title character’s troubled times during the days leading up to her bat mitzvah. The Australian film costars Keisha Castle-Hughes (who made her stunning debut in Whale Rider) and Toni Collette, and its considerable charm lies in its portrayal of Esther the underdog (Danielle Catanzariti) and her pet duck. And then there’s HAG: The Story of the Hasidic Actors’ Guild (November 9), which is an uneven mockumentary about HAG founder Yisrael Lifschutz. Along with numerous clips from Mel Brooks and Allen films, it includes some wonderful footage of Lifschutz and his fellow actors doing calisthenics while chanting “svelte means gelt” that almost makes up for the film’s tubbiness at 93 minutes.

As for topical fare, Merkel, who’s run the festival for the past two years, doesn’t believe the VJFF’s audiences have an appetite for films on Israeli actions in Gaza or Lebanon right now. “There is already so much of that on TV,” he reasons, “although we have shown films like that in the past.” He adds that “this year, for some reason, we didn’t get a lot of political—or I didn’t think they were very good—films, so I left a lot of the political side out.”

What then emerges as the festival’s hardest-hitting documentary is Flipping Out. It comes from rising Israeli star Yoav Shamir, who previously directed the unflinching cinéma vérité film Checkpoint, which observed Israeli soldiers at Palestinian-Israeli borders. Flipping Out can be seen as a less intense follow-up, showing the aftereffects that such service has on young soldiers. Many of them flee to India after their military service to unwind, take drugs, and escape the pressures of army life. According to the film, at least 2,000 of them have had psychotic episodes, or “flipped out”. Even the Israel Anti-Drug Authority and Orthodox Chabad houses have started popping up along the known travel routes to help round up the drug users and get them home. It’s a uniquely antiwar film that captures hedonism and drug-taking in the context of escape and posttraumatic stress—and at the same time observes a style of tourism that wreaks havoc in Indian communities.

And who is the VJFF trying to attract? Merkel explains that the organization is looking to attract younger attendees. “In the past, a lot of the younger audiences have said, ”˜Oh, the Jewish Film Festival, that’s for old people. It’s all Holocaust and that sort of thing.’ But it’s not. We’ve gone really on the edge this year, with some risky-style movies.” Although the programming isn’t as edgy as he claims—where is the film that could inspire debate in the local community?—it does provide rich contemplation and humour on Jewish subjects traversing the globe. Plus, there’s a whole series on Jews in France that explores the Dreyfus Affair, the Vichy government, and relations with Israel.

“We have a slogan, that ”˜Our films are not selected; they are chosen,’ ” Merkel says with a chuckle. So who, really, can take issue with that?