Welcome to Yiddishland
Jun 09, 2024 | IMDB 0
98 min Watch NowDocumentary
An upbeat, witty, and timely exploration of a global community of artists creating innovative work in their quest to rediscover and revitalise the endangered Yiddish language. From behind-the-scenes with an acclaimed Yiddish-language version of Yentl in Melbourne, to enjoyably transgressive punk-Klezmer musicians, and Barrie Kosky’s latest trailblazing production in Berlin – the endangered Yiddish language is alive and well in this rousing documentary. The language originated amongst the Jewish community in Eastern Europe, but almost disappeared when more than half of the world’s Yiddish speakers were murdered during the Holocaust. Most of the artists and performers (aka Yiddishists) in the film didn’t grow up speaking Yiddish, but all have found solace, identity, and inspiration in its rich traditions and culture. Ros Horin has mapped a fascinating cultural history.
MOVIE COMMENTS
SIMILAR MOVIES
The Great Yiddish Love
The Paper Brigade
A bissele Glik
A Little Family Conversation
A Yiddish World Remembered
4th Dementia
SHTTL
An American Pickle
The Man Without a World
40 Nickels
Motel the Operator
Gold for Fools
Mellons makt
Paper Heads
Butterflies
Glory Hounds
Daddy I Do
The Tragic Mask: The Laird Cregar Story
Red Storm Rising: The Struggle for the American Communist Party
Attack! The Battle for New Britain
SIMILAR MOVIES
The Great Yiddish Love
IMDB 0 | Jan , 2002
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.The Paper Brigade
IMDB 6 | Mar , 2018
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 bissele Glik
IMDB 9 | May , 2009
A Little Family Conversation
IMDB 5 | Jun , 2000
The questioning of Jewish heritage and identity via the portrait of a diversed family, across Belgium and the United States.A Yiddish World Remembered
IMDB 10 | Nov , 2004
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.4th Dementia
IMDB 7 | Jun , 2024
In this multiverse comedy about Alzheimer's, Nellie travels through alternate dimensions in search of her husband.SHTTL
IMDB 6.7 | Oct , 2023
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
IMDB 5.7 | Aug , 2020
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
IMDB 2 | May , 1991
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
IMDB 0 | Mar , 2021
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?Motel the Operator
IMDB 0 | Jan , 1940
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
IMDB 0 | Feb , 2026
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.Mellons makt
IMDB 0 | Feb , 2024
Every year the Swedish entertainment industry is taken over for weeks by a single television show trying to find Sweden's representative at the Eurovision Song Contest. Melodifestivalen has grown into a center around which a large portion of the Swedish music industry revolves and is financed by. Is it really reasonable that so much power is wielded by a single production?Paper Heads
IMDB 6.3 | May , 1996
Dušan Hanák's final film: a bitter documentary about the history of Communism in Czechoslovakia.Butterflies
IMDB 0 | Feb , 2026
A celebration of love and resilience, Butterflies follows Quinn and Josh, who met in their high school special education program. They reflect on their prom night which turned a mother's fears into a moment of triumph. Through heartfelt stories and reflections, this short documentary challenges perceptions of disability, demonstrating that love knows no boundaries and those little moments of joy are always worth celebrating.Glory Hounds
IMDB 0 | Feb , 2013
On the battlefields, a remarkable group serves the United States with limitless courage and unparalleled loyalty. Devoted to protecting their comrades, military working dogs serve beside their human partners in Afghanistan. They only ask for affection in return.Daddy I Do
IMDB 7 | Jan , 2010
The Purity Ball symbolizes a father's protection over his daughter's virginity, but how does this reflect in the choices she makes, understanding her sexuality, and knowing her worth as a woman? This documentary examines the effects of Abstinence-Only Programs versus Comprehensive Sex Education in schools and what society can do to help lower teen pregnancies, abortions, and STDS, as well as poverty and sexual abuse.The Tragic Mask: The Laird Cregar Story
IMDB 7 | Oct , 2007
A biography of the short-lived character actor Laird Cregar.Red Storm Rising: The Struggle for the American Communist Party
IMDB 0 | Mar , 2025
Red Storm Rising” looks at the rise and fall of the American Communist Party, examining its political context, its leadership, its appeal to the American public, and why it never became mainstream.Attack! The Battle for New Britain
IMDB 6 | Jun , 1944
Actual footage by the United States Signal Corps of the landing and attack on Arawe Beach, Cape Glouster, New Britain island in 1943 in the South Pacific theatre of World War Two, and the handicaps of the wild jungle in addition to the Japanese snipers and pill-box emplacements.