44 May 9 • 2019
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wo films specific to the times — 
one a documentary, the other a 
docudrama — are part of this 
year’
s Ann Arbor Jewish Film Festival, 
which is showcasing nine full-length 
films and six short films.
The documentary, 93Queen, 
reflects the push for women’
s rights in 
Brooklyn’
s Chasidic community with 
the creation of the first all-female vol-
unteer ambulance corps in New York 
City.
The docudrama, Shoelaces, delves into 
the growing awareness of relationships 
and opportunities faced by a man with a 
special-needs son.
The 18th annual festival, running 
May 12-16, this year is presented in con-
nection with the Cinetopia Film Festival, 
which runs May 10-19. Cinetopia 
features some 60 international films in 
venues around the region, introduces 
a range of speakers and opens with the 
film Before You Know It, described as 
having Jewish sensibilities. 
The opening film, listing a stellar cast, 
including Jewish entertainer Mandy 
Patinkin, will be joined by its co-writers, 
Hannah Pearl Utt and Jen Tullock, who 
appear in the comedy as sisters discov-
ering the mother they thought was dead 
is actually alive and starring in a soap 
opera. 
“Collaborating with Cinetopia is an 
exciting opportunity to share Jewish 
films with so many more people,
” says 
Karen Freedland, director of Jewish cul-
tural arts and education for the Jewish 
Community Center of Greater Ann 
Arbor and director of its film festival. 

Another co-sponsored film is To Dust, 
about a cantor struggling to find reli-
gious solace in coping with his wife’
s 
death and seeking help from a college 
biology professor.
Meryl Goldsmith, who grew up 
in Bloomfield Hills and produced 
the film Love, Gilda (about the late 
Jewish comedian Gilda Radner, also 
from Michigan), will be represented 
at Cinetopia because of production 
responsibilities for a very different 
documentary, Well Groomed, capturing 
the world of creative dog grooming. 
Paula Eiselt directed 93Queen and is 
pleased the film has brought larger sup-
port — funding and participation — to 
the entry of religious women into emer-
gency medical care, defined as part of 
the MeToo movement. 
“I strived to make a film true to 
the community — a complex film, a 
nuanced film that neither demonized 
nor sanitized the community where 
it takes place,
” explains Eiselt, an 
Orthodox woman who learned about 
the initiative through accessing a reli-
gion-based website.
What struck Eiselt was the idea that 
women had been banned by the existing 
ambulance corps and began opposing 
that stance in a way not typical for the 
culture. The filmmaker met with the 
woman at the helm, and that started a 
five-year production process. 
“Funding is mostly based on private 
donations,
” Eiselt says. 
Since the film came out, there was 
a successful crowdfunding campaign 
that raised new funding from outside 

the Chasidic community. There also 
has been the development of addi-
tional groups doing the same kind of 
ambulance work in Long Island and 
Manhattan.
“They service anyone who calls — 
men or women,
” the filmmaker says.
Eiselt wants to stress, through the 
film, that feminism does not mean that 
one size fits all.
“This is what feminism and wom-
en’
s empowerment looks like in [this 
Chasidic community],
” she says. “It’
s not 
what feminism and women’
s empow-
erment looks like in other parts of the 
world. There are different needs, and 
I see this as a story of women creating 
space for themselves and finding space 
where there wasn’
t.
“There are women who have been too 
embarrassed to call for help and have 
died as a result, so this is a great model 
of change and progress and how com-
munities change from the bottom up.
” 
Shoelaces, a film nominated for eight 
Israeli Academy Awards, was directed 
by Jacob Goldwasser. The story has to 
do with the efforts of a special-needs 
son trying to help his father, whose own 
special need is a kidney transplant.
“I hope audiences will be able to 
look into the eyes of people with spe-
cial needs and see what they do have 
[instead of seeing] only what they don’
t 
have,
” Goldwasser says. “I hope audienc-
es will learn to like Gadi and even his 
ability to fight for what he believes in his 
own way.
”
Although the plot is based on a true 
event that happened to another family, 

Goldwasser entered the project knowing 
the characteristics, challenges and emo-
tions because of personal experiences 
with his oldest son, who has special 
needs.
“My wife and our younger son, 
Itamar, who edited the film, were very 
supportive and cooperative all along 
the long development and making of 
Shoelaces,
” he explains. 
“It took me 12 years from the time I 
heard about the true event until I was 
convinced to make the film. I realized 
I could transform this tragedy into 
an optimistic story that would help 
improve the image of people with 
special needs in the eyes of a vast 
audience.” ■

arts&life

Joint Effort

Ann Arbor Jewish Film Festival, Cinetopia 
alliance brings Jewish fi
 lms to more people.

Details
For film descriptions and schedules, 
visit cinetopiafestival.org and 
film.jccannarbor.org. Individual tickets 
are $10 and $15. 

Other Jewish Film 
Festival screenings:

• Budapest Noir is a murder mystery 
that takes place as Hungary is about 
to align with Hitler.
• The Unorthodox unfolds political 
initiatives taken by a member of the 
Sephardi community in Jerusalem.
• Why the Jews? recounts 
accomplishments by members of the 
Jewish faith.
• The Samuel Project connects an 
outcast teen with his grandfather.
• The Ancient Law, a silent film, 
follows the son of an Orthodox rabbi 
who wants to become an actor. 
• Remember Baghdad delves into 
experiences of the Jews of Iraq.
• The Last Suit presents the journey 
of an aged clothier in search of the 
man who saved his life.

PHOTO CREDIT JULIETA CERVANTES

TOP: 93Queen is a documentary about an all-
female ambulance corps in Brooklyn’
s Chasidic 
community. ABOVE: In the Israeli film Shoelaces, 
a son with special needs tries to help his father, 
who needs a kidney transplant.

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

