Menashe

Menashe is a widower in an ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn. By the community's rule a child cannot be raised in a home without a mother, and his son Rieven is living with his brother-in-law. Menashe wants him back, and the only route is to remarry, which he does not want. The rabbi gives him one week: the boy can stay with him until the memorial meal for his wife. This is Joshua Z Weinstein's first fiction feature. Coming from documentary, he shot in Borough Park in secret over two years. The entire cast is from the Hasidic community and none are professional actors; many had never seen a film. It is almost entirely in Yiddish, among the first features made in the language in some seventy years. Menashe Lustig, in the lead, plays a story close to his own life. After screening at Sundance the film was acquired by A24 and became the company's first foreign-language release. Who it's for: Viewers who like drama told from inside closed communities, father and son stories, and realist independent cinema. Who it's not for: The plot is small and no resolution is offered. The context of the community's rules is also not explained to the viewer.