Welcome to Yiddishland(2024)

A Yiddish World Remembered(en)

Elliott Gould narrates this affectionate look at life in the shtetls of Eastern Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries. "It's unreal that all this could have just disappeared," says Polish native Mariem Adler Stok, one of the seniors whose memories of this "Yiddish world" give this documentary its life. The hour traces Jewish history in Europe and explores Jews' focus on education, their religious customs, clothing, food, music and theater.

A bissele Glik(de)

The Paper Brigade(fr)

Lithuania, 1941, during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of texts on Jewish culture, stolen by the Germans, are gathered in Vilnius to be classified, either to be stored or to be destroyed. A group of Jewish scholars and writers, commissioned by the invaders to carry out the sorting operations, but reluctant to collaborate and determined to save their legacy, hide many books in the ghetto where they are confined. This is the epic story of the Paper Brigade.

A Little Family Conversation(fr)

The questioning of Jewish heritage and identity via the portrait of a diversed family, across Belgium and the United States.

The Great Yiddish Love(en)

Set in Berlin and New York's Lower East Side, The Great Yiddish Love stars the self-exiled Marlene Dietrich and her Nazi-endorsed replacement, Zarah Leander. It is a melodrama of love, emigration, and betrayal reassembled from Hollywood, German Ufa and Yiddish films from the 1930s and 40s.

An American Pickle(en)

An immigrant worker at a pickle factory is accidentally preserved for 100 years and wakes up in modern day Brooklyn. He learns his only surviving relative is his great grandson, a computer coder who he can’t connect with.

The Man Without a World(en)

The Man Without a World is credited to the legendary (and imaginary) 1920s Soviet director, Yevgeny Antinov. But the film is anything but old. In fact, Antinov himself is the creation of contemporary filmmaker Eleanor Antin. Her film is a moving, comic melodrama set in a typical shtetl (village) in Poland. The Jews’ struggle against poverty and racial hatred is complicated by their own division into hostile political factions of the religious orthodoxy, assimilationists, socialists, Zionists, anarchists and survivors. While the Jews of the shtetl pursue their loves, politics, religion, business and dreams for the future, the Angel of Death is ever near...

40 Nickels(en)

Based her grandfather’s boyhood in St. Louis, Yasmin Gorenberg tells a story of the pain passed from refugee parents to their children and the hope that can overcome it. “40 Nickels” captures the image of a generation of immigrants to the United States in the 1920’s and 1930’s and through that spotlights the effects of the 1919 pogroms in Eastern Europe. This is a film about parents and children: how trauma never leaves a family, and how hope and resilience is also passed down. It asks the question: Can a new generation look at the world with wonder rather than fear?

Gold for Fools(en)

Raised in rural isolation by an extremist Hasidic sect, Chaim is torn between his devotion to his grandmother, an aging Holocaust survivor, and his attraction to a sexy blond in a Liberty car insurance ad.

Motel the Operator(yi)

Motel, a poor laborer, loving husband and new father, leads cloakmakers in a strike for better working conditions. When he is severely injured by strikebreakers, his wife, Esther, and infant son are left destitute. Desperate to save her starving child, Esther gives him up for adoption to a wealthy couple, and then commits suicide. The richly-rendered beautiful Yiddish songs by Sholem Secunda featuring Cantor Leibele Waldman and Joel Feig's famous choir are a good example of the bittersweet melodrama in the finest tradition of the Yiddish theater.

Perspectives: For the Love of Fred Astaire(en)

Strictly Come Dancing's Len Goodman shows his softer side in Fred Astaire tribute. Includes interviews with Astaire's daughter Ava as well as dance partner Barrie Chase.

Moleman 3: Journey to the Surface(hu)

Moleman 3 is a documentary diary about a journey from the underground to the cultural surface. Music styles and artists ignored by record labels and the mainstream media didn't have much chance of getting wide recognition back in the day. The digital revolution changed everything. The internet and digital technology, accessible to everyone, reshaped the music industry completely. The significance of record labels which controlled mainstream music has changed and decayed. For genres building themselves up from the bottom, success was once unimaginable without a record label and money. As of today, thanks to the digital revolution, it can easily be done.

The Everly Brothers: Harmonies From Heaven(en)

Documentary which celebrates, over the period covering the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 60s, the phenomenon of the Everly Brothers, arguably the greatest harmony duo the world has witnessed, who directly influenced the greatest and most successful bands of the 60s and 70s - The Beatles, The Stones, The Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel to name but a few.

Der Bauer und der Bobo(de)

Organic mountain farmer Christian Bachler and "Oberbobo" Florian Klenk, editor-in-chief of the Viennese magazine "falter", argue in front of 100,000 viewers on Facebook about the responsibility of farmers for their cattle. This creates a friendship. When the bank wants to auction the farm, Bobo starts a fundraiser. 13,000 people follow the call and donate 420,000 euros, the farm is debt-free. A modern fairy tale that changes both of them: Bobo and the farmer are now fighting together for sustainable agriculture.

Heroes of the Sky: The Mighty Eighth Air Force(en)

Experience the story of the airmen that seismically shifted the Allies fortunes during World War II, known as the Mighty Eighth Airforce. Featuring never before seen archival footage, ride in the cockpits of the planes that destroyed Hitler's menacing Airforce; The Luftwaffe. They will fly dangerous missions, announcing their arrival into Germany with thousands of white vapor trails and dogfight with Nazi pilots, dropping bombs on the Reich. This is the Real True Story of the Mighty Eighth.

Tolyatti Adrift(ru)

A portrait of the disenchanted youth of the city of Tolyatti, once a symbol of Soviet progress and the automobile, now devastated by economic decline. Laura Sistero encounters an aimless young generation, who express their dreams of escape through crazy races in old patched-up Ladas. A cinematic object is propelled by spectacular skids to the rhythm of an electro-rock soundtrack.

11M: Terror in Madrid(es)

Survivors and insiders recount March 11, 2004's terrorist attack on Madrid, including the political crisis it ignited and the hunt for the perpetrators.

Acquittal(fr)

Manon has been a defendant in the Tarnac case for ten years, accused with eight other people of participating in a terrorist undertaking while sabotaging high-speed lines in France. As their trial approaches, I’m taking my camera to join the group of women who helps Manon preparing her defense.

Boom Boom(fr)

I meet Pierrot in the fall of 2018. We demonstrate together in the heart of the Yellow Vests movement. The earth trembles and so do our hearts. Our bodies mingles with thousands of others who express their anger in the street every Saturday.

Ceux de la nuit(fr)

The French-Italian border at the Montgenèvre pass. Daytime reality: tourism, capital invested to make the mountain profitable. At night: the fragile destiny of more than ten thousand men, women and children who, in four years, risked their lives to cross the border.