Shttl
Massachusetts Premiere!
One of the most spellbinding films of the year, Shttl beautifully captures the expansive, multi-character lives and loves of a Yiddish-speaking Jewish village in Ukraine on the Polish border.
Mendele, who has been living a secular life in Kiev, finds himself back in the familiar and comforting world of his shtetl, a vibrant place, brimming with the romance, politics, and intrigue of everyday life, and simmering tensions between tradition and modernity. Set a day before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, this is a world on the precipice of disaster, and the film unspools with our knowledge of the looming terror and does not flinch in depicting the destruction and loss.
Writer-director Ady Walter’s debut masterpiece (filmed outside of Kyiv before the present war in Ukraine) was audaciously captured in one single take. The remarkable cast is led by Moshe Lobel (Broadway’s Yiddish revival of Fiddler on the Roof) and consummate character actor Saul Rubinek (Hunters, Unforgiven) who is himself fluent in Yiddish and the son of holocaust survivors.
Winner – Rome Film Festival, Best Film Audience Award
PROGRAM NOTE:
Shown in conjunction with NCJF’s 1939 Yiddish feature THE LIGHT AHEAD screening Sunday, May 7 at 4:00 pm
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.
