Welcome to Yiddishland

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.

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.

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.

A bissele Glik(de)

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?

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...

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.

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.

4th Dementia(en)

In this multiverse comedy about Alzheimer's, Nellie travels through alternate dimensions in search of her husband.

SHTTL(yi)

In one continuous shot, SHTTL shows the lives, loves, and inner conflicts within a Yiddish speaking shtetl on the border between Ukraine and Poland - one day before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

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.

Smoky Mountain Explorer - An Island in the Sky(en)

Take a video journey to the Top of Old Smoky, Clingmans Dome, the highest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains. View astonishing footage of rivers of clouds, sunrises, wildlife, wildflowers, and the turn of the seasons atop this island in the sky.

The Brothers Grimm: Bringing the Fairytale to Life(en)

Behind the scenes of The Brothers Grimm

The White Nigger(no)

A documentary about renowned Norwegian author Ingvar Ambjørnsen. Being one of Norways most-read modern authors, and having written over 30 books of which seven have been made into movies, he visits old places that mean something to him. From his childhood to his older life, many stations in his life are called to and he shares some of his thoughts about them with the audience.

Terres nourricières(fr)

Pompeii: Disaster Street(it)

Archaeologists have just uncovered entirely new areas and villas in ancient Pompeii… the first excavation there in 70 years. Get exclusive access to the dig and see how new artifacts and new DNA science are changing history. And through the use of sophisticated Hollywood production techniques and reenactments, discover the real stories of what happened to the unfortunate souls who didn’t escape to the city gates. This is the devastating account of the final hours of that fateful day in October 79AD.

Spotlight on Location: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas(en)

Behind the scenes of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Melville, le dernier samouraï(fr)

Like nobody else Jean-Pierre Melville influenced modern filmmaking. This documentary follows his creative process step by step, showing him becoming the father of the Nouvelle Vague and one of the most iconic directors of French cinema.

One Way(ne)

Contemporary economic conditions in Nepal are examined with documentary images, interviews, and narration. There has been, for many years, a labour migration from across Nepal to India ’s cities. This short film is set in the underground parking lot of an apartment building in Bangalore, in South India. One Way follows the livelihood of a security guard named Shyam Bahadur, who lives with the rest of his family in the electric switching room of an apartment block, to whom he provides service for the sake of survival. The narrative of the journey he made 35 years ago, from the mountains of Nepal to the southern plateau of Bangalore, punctuates his day-to-day life in and out of the basement. As his personal story unfolds, the hills of Nepal are being rocked by “the people’s war,” yet another historical disturbances that has forced Nepalis to emigrate for work.