Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish

Dir. Eve Annenberg I USA I 2010 I 89 mins I English and Yiddish English subtitles

The fast-growing Yiddish cultural revival hits the big screen in Eve Annenberg’s ambitious New York drama about Ava, a secular Jewish nurse who gets asked to adapt the Bard’s great work into the Yiddish Language. Lost for words, she finds help from Laser and Mendy, two disillusioned Satmar Hassidim who are fast falling between the cracks of their two worlds: the isolationist, religious world they grew up in, and the hard-nosed, secular world that they are ill-prepared to live in. The problem is that the Satmar boys have never heard of Shakespeare – but as they start to work with Ava, they soon fall under his magical spell. Part contemporary drama and part on-screen theatre, this sweet, inventive take on English literature’s most famous story has the lowbudget charm to bring off the unusual setting with style, while making canny observations about the presumptions and prejudices on both sides of the religious divide.

Followed by a Q&A with the film’s director Eve Annenberg.

Screening with:

The Demon Bridgegroom

Dir. Andrea Dezso I USA I 2009 I 15 mins

A young woman preparing for her wedding encounters a mysterious stranger.