What Kichka: Telling Myself is really about
Kichka: Telling Myself opens on a man at a crossroads — not a dramatic one, but the quiet, unsettling kind that arrives when a life's work starts wrapping itself up. Michel Kichka, one of the most recognizable cartoonists in Israeli cultural history, has spent decades skewering politicians, mourning losses, and drawing his way through a country that never quite stopped surprising him. Now, at 67, he's been asked to step aside at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, making room for the next generation of artists. The film doesn't treat this as a tragedy. It treats it as a door. What's on the other side is a reckoning — with identity, with family silence, with the particular weight that children of Holocaust survivors carry without ever being asked to.
How Kichka: Telling Myself came together as a film
Directed and written by Gadi Aisen and produced through Gads Films, Kichka: Telling Myself is a compact 67-minute documentary that punches well above its runtime. The film premiered in Israel in May 2025 before entering Docaviv's 2025 competition, Israel's premier documentary film festival, which gave it an early stamp of credibility on home turf. From there it moved onto Israeli public broadcaster Kan 11, reaching a domestic television audience, and then began its international festival run in earnest.
The 2026 festival circuit has been particularly kind to it. The film screened at the Master of Art Film Festival in Bulgaria, appeared at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival 2026, and landed a Canadian premiere at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival 2026 as part of the Artist-in-Residence programme — a selection that the TJFF's own social channels described as a "hidden gem" pick. That's not a phrase festival programmers throw around lightly. No Rotten Tomatoes aggregate exists yet, and box-office figures haven't been reported (this is a documentary that lives and breathes on the festival circuit, not the multiplex), but the trajectory of its programming suggests a film that curators trust to hold a room.
Michel Kichka himself is no minor figure. Dubbed the "godfather of Israeli caricature" and a Knight of Arts and Letters — France's prestigious cultural honor — he came to Israel from Belgium as a young, enthusiastic Zionist volunteer during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and never really left, eventually becoming a cornerstone of Bezalel's illustration faculty. The film draws on this biography directly, using his cartoons as both visual evidence and emotional testimony.
Why Kichka: Telling Myself stands out from other Holocaust documentaries
Honestly, the second-generation Holocaust documentary is a well-worn genre at this point. What makes Kichka: Telling Myself different is that it doesn't lead with the Holocaust — it arrives there. The film earns its emotional weight by first establishing Kichka as a working artist, a political voice, a man with a Belgian accent who became a "rough Jerusalemite" (his own framing, and it's a good one). The deterioration he charts through his cartoons — of Israeli politics, of public memory, of the Zionist idealism he once carried across the Mediterranean — feels genuinely observed rather than argued.
The thing nobody mentions enough about this film is how much it trusts the drawings themselves. Kichka's graphic novel about his father's Holocaust survival and the family silence that followed — a work that was later adapted into an animated French feature film — becomes the film's emotional spine. That graphic novel, Second Generation: What I Didn't Tell My Father, is a real document of inherited grief, and watching Kichka discuss how it was created, what it cost him, and what it released — that's where the documentary finds its most affecting moments.
Writer Stephen Silver, covering documentary selections from the 2026 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, grouped Kichka: Telling Myself among the festival's notable documentary offerings and drew a direct line between Kichka's work and Art Spiegelman's Maus — which is a comparison that actually holds up, not as flattery but as a genuine observation about how certain artists find that the only way to process inherited catastrophe is to draw it. Movie OTT tracks films like this one precisely because they tend to slip through the cracks of mainstream coverage despite offering some of the most substantive viewing experiences of any given year.
Where to stream Kichka: Telling Myself online
Streaming Kichka: Telling Myself is currently possible through major OTT services — check the Where-to-Watch widget at the top of this page for the most current platform availability, since these things shift faster than any editorial team can update prose. The film's confirmed broadcast home in Israel is Kan 11, the public broadcaster that has aired it for domestic audiences. Beyond that, its festival run across Docaviv, Atlanta, Toronto, and Bulgaria suggests that a broader digital release is the logical next step, though no major international VOD platform has been officially confirmed at the time of writing. Movie OTT aggregates streaming data across platforms in real time, so if a new window opens up on any major service, you'll find it reflected there before most outlets catch up.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Who directed Kichka: Telling Myself?
The film was directed and written by Gadi Aisen, produced through Gads Films. Aisen structured the documentary around Michel Kichka's own reflections, drawings, and family history rather than relying on external talking heads.
Q: Where can I watch Kichka: Telling Myself?
The film aired on Israeli broadcaster Kan 11 and has screened at multiple international festivals including Docaviv 2025, Atlanta Jewish Film Festival 2026, and Toronto Jewish Film Festival 2026. For current streaming availability on major OTT platforms, the Where-to-Watch widget on this Movie OTT page is the fastest way to check — platform availability updates regularly and varies by region.
Q: Is Kichka: Telling Myself based on a true story?
Yes — it's a documentary about the real life of Michel Kichka, an actual cartoonist and illustrator who taught at Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem for decades. His graphic novel about his father's Holocaust survival and the animated French film adapted from it are both real works, not fictional constructs.
Q: How long is Kichka: Telling Myself?
The film runs approximately 67 minutes, making it one of the tighter feature-length documentaries in recent Israeli cinema. That runtime is a deliberate choice — it doesn't overstay its welcome, which is harder to pull off than it sounds.
Q: What is the connection between Kichka: Telling Myself and the Holocaust?
Michel Kichka is a second-generation Holocaust survivor — his father survived the camps, but largely kept silent about it. That silence, and the family tragedy it contributed to, became the subject of Kichka's graphic novel, which is a central thread in the documentary. The film examines how inherited trauma shapes both an artist's work and his sense of identity across decades.
Who should watch Kichka: Telling Myself
Kichka: Telling Myself is the kind of documentary that rewards patience and curiosity in equal measure. It won't suit viewers looking for conventional Holocaust testimony or a straightforward career retrospective — it's more layered than either. Fans of graphic memoir, political cartooning, and Israeli cultural history will find it particularly rich. If the name Art Spiegelman means something to you, or if you've ever wondered how an artist reconciles idealism with disillusionment without giving up the pen, this 67-minute film is worth your evening. Movie OTT covers documentary titles across the full spectrum of streaming platforms, and this one deserves a spot on your watchlist.