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I Have Sinned (Al Khet)

Runtime
1hr 35mins
Directed by
Aleksander Marten, Shaul Goskind
Featuring
Rachel Holzer,
Avrom Morewski,
Shimen Dzigan
Film Language
in Yiddish with English subtitles
Body

New England Premiere of New Restoration!

Post-film Q&A with NCJF Directors Sharon Pucker Rivo and Lisa Rivo and Mikhl Yashinsky, Yiddish translator of I Have Sinned.

Released in 1936, I Have Sinned (Al Khet) was the first Yiddish sound film made in Poland, and marks the film debut of the Polish-Jewish comedy team Dzigan and Schumacher. Unseen for generations until its new rescue and restoration by The National Center for Jewish Film, I Have Sinned (Al Khet) blends melodrama with a bissel of comedy and music. 

Set in a small Jewish town during World War I, the film follows Esther (Rachel Holzer), a rabbi’s daughter who abandons her child after her lover dies in battle and the Russians invade. Complications unfold as Esther’s friends played by Dzigan and Schumacher attempt to reunite mother and daughter years later. The film’s themes of dislocation and family separation due to war and poverty are, unfortunately, deeply resonant today.

Please note: by purchasing a ticket to this screening, you agree that your contact information will be shared with the National Center for Jewish Film for the purpose of including you on their mailing lists.

Reviews
Review Text

"The legendary comic duo Dzigan and Schumacher, in their film debut, are superb; the rich Polish Yiddish is delicious, and as a snapshot of mid-1930s Polish Jewry, it’s extraordinary... No film paints a more detailed picture of life in interwar Yiddishland… For those with an interest in juicy, authentic Yiddish or pre-war Jewish life in Europe, it’s invaluable.”

Review Author
Allen Lewis Rickman
Review Publication
The Forward
Review Text

Al Khet has the heavy chiaroscuro of a contemporary European art film. [The story] is certainly less oblivious to historical events than comparable American melodramas, haunted as it is by the wartime destruction of Galicia.

Review Author
J. Hoberman
Review Publication
Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds
Review Text

“A little gem -- melodrama, musical numbers, historic sweep, a woman seducing a fella not knowing he is betrothed to the daughter she abandoned!”

Review Author
Mikhl Yashinsky

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