The Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival (HJFF) is holding its 17th festival at the Asia Society, Hong Kong Center from 19 to 27 November.

The thread running through many of this year’s selections is “Remember” – also the title of the opening-night movie. This theme reflects the large number of films that encourage viewers to look back, question and reflect on the Holocaust, the major historical tragedy of the 20th century that still affects our lives today. Many of the films tackle this sensitive and difficult subject from different angles and with new perspectives, and as the number of survivors among us dwindles, these stories remind us of our duty to remember those terrible events, and of our responsibility to ensure that the legacy of those lost is passed onto future generations.

The opening film, Remember, featuring Academy Award winners Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau, is a gripping thriller in which the darkest chapter of the 20th century collides with a contemporary mission of revenge.

Other chilling films that deal with the perpetrators of the Holocaust include The Interrogation, about the trial of Rudolf Hoss, the longest-serving commander of Auschwitz, and The Eichmann Show, which dramatises the events surrounding the televising of the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 in Jerusalem. Set in the same time period as The Eichmann Show but taking place in the US, Experimenter tackles the topic of the Holocaust from a totally different perspective, portraying the life of famed social psychologist Stanley Milgram (Peter Sarsgaard) whose radical behavioural experiments hit a nerve and sparked a public outcry.