29th Annual Virginia Festival of Jewish Film
Presented by Alma & Howard Laderberg
HESTER STREET
A sparkling new 4K restoration in honor of the film’s 40th anniversary
AN EVENING DEDICATED TO LONGTIME FRIEND OF THE FESTIVAL, MAL VINCENT
Includes a conversation with Rabbi Michael Panitz
Monday, February 28
7:00 PM
Naro Expanded Cinema
1507 Colley Avenue
Norfolk
Join us in the theater or watch at home, LIVE!
Director Joan Michelin Silver | 89 min
USA | 1975
English | PG
Among the great cinematic portraits of Jewish life in America, Joan Micklin Silver’s debut feature is anchored by her own screenplay (adapted from Abraham Cahan’s 1896 novella Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto) and an unforgettable, Oscar-nominated performance by Carol Kane. Kane stars as Gitl, one half of an Eastern European Jewish couple alongside Yankel (Steven Keats). Upon arriving in New York’s Lower East Side in the late 19th century, Gitl finds that Yankel, who’d come over to America before her and their young son Yossele, has begun an affair with a dancer, and Gitl finds herself in an unenviable situation in a strange new place. Hester Street reconstructs this bygone haven for Jewish immigrants to paint one woman’s journey to assimilation and her arrival at the crossroads of tradition and modernity.