One of the 2025 Oscar winners was a favourite at a recent film festival in Manchester

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A Real Pain wins Oscars UK Jewish Film Festival Manchester

It’s not often we get to say that Greater Manchester can lay any sort of claim to Oscars fame, but once in a while it happens and in this case, we’re only a few degrees of separation away from the latest Academy Award-winning film thanks to a recent film festival.

Being most recently hosted in Manchester once again, the 2024 edition of the UK Jewish Film Festival saw a number of shorts, student films and indie projects associated with the religion spotlighted – one of which just won not one but two bits of bronze.

Picking up not only the award for this year’s award for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ for the film itself but with Succession favourite and Home Alone child star, Kieran Culkin’s role winning him ‘Best Supporting Actor’, the much-celebrated A Real Pain has now won an Oscar.

But the part of all this that we’re especially happy about is that one of the first times it was seen in the UK happened right here in Manchester city centre late last year.

This year’s ‘Best Original Screenplay’ award winner at the Oscars, just a few months after screening in Manchester. Have you seen it yet?

The now Oscar-winning picture, which just so happens to be the second original feature film from Jesse Eisenberg (Social Network, Zombieland, Justice League), has been delighting audiences ever since its debut at Sundance in January 2024 and went on to premiere at several international film festivals.

However, the second time it was screened here in Britain prior to its official UK release nearly a full 12 months later (8 Jan 2025) at the UK Jewish Film Festival, was in 0161, returning for another consecutive year across multiple Greater Manchester venues.

Based at the main hub in the HOME theatre, cinema, arts and social space on First Street, A Real Pain was part of the event’s 28th annual programme of movie and TV programme.

Without giving away too much about the plot itself, the synopsis of the film reads as follows: “Mismatched cousins reunite for a tour through Poland to honour their beloved grandmother, but their old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.”

Shown to us Mancs for the first time at Cineworld Didsbury on Thursday, 17 November last year, you won’t be surprised to hear it was one of the most popular picks of this festival too.

A Real Pain has been largely described as a buddy comedy and a road trip movie by lots of critics but there’s also tonnes of drama and serious subject matter that it gets stuck into.

Touching not only the obvious themes of Judaism and Zionism but also family, the Holocaust specifically and theology in general, the film has gone down as a deeply important piece of cinema for a whole community and plenty of people beyond it.

Admittedly, the Greater Manchester connection to the film might only be a slight one but given its new Oscars fame and how well-reviewed the film has been ever since we saw it at the UK Jewish Film (UJFF) Festival, we’re absolutely jumping on the bandwagon and we’re glad to keep supporting events like this.

Make sure you check out the UJFF the next time it comes to our neck of the woods. Applications to enter a film into the 2025 festival are now open.

Side note: it also led to arguably one of the best acceptance speeches in years:

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Featured Images — Searchlight Pictures/HOME Manchester