A Life Apart: Hasidism in America, is the first in-depth documentary about a distinctive, traditional Eastern European religious community. In an historic migration after World War II, Hasidism found it's most vital center in America. Both challenging and embracing American values, Hasidim seek those things which many Americans find most precious: family, community, and a close relationship to God. Integrating critical and analytical scholarship with a portrait of the daily life, beliefs, and history of contemporary Hasidic Jews in New York City, the film focuses on the conflicts, burdens, and rewards of the Hasidic way of life.
Set in the Hasidic enclave of Borough Park, Brooklyn, "93Queen" follows a group of tenacious Hasidic women who are smashing the patriarchy in their community by creating the first all-female volunteer ambulance corps in New York City. With unprecedented-and insider-access, "93Queen" offers up a unique portrayal of a group of religious women who are taking matters into their own hands to change their own community from within.
Stamford Hill in North London is home to a community of 30,000 Hasidic Jews. Aiming to preserve a way of life they had in eighteenth century Poland and living strictly according to over 600 Biblical commandments brings them into conflict with modern life. They have embraced one aspect fully though, the Volvo Estate car.
"City of Joel" is documentary - with unprecedented access - to a 1.1 square mile shtetl in the suburbs that is home to 22,000 members of an one of the most insular and orthodox Hasidic sects. We follow the battles they are waging to survive. Just 50 miles north of New York City, the Satmar sect has built Kiryas Joel as a religious haven where they can be fruitful, multiply and follow the 613 rules of the Talmud. But with some of the highest rates of marriage, birth and religious observance in the country, they have been almost too successful. Developers have come up with a plan to double the size of the village to keep up with this growth, but their neighbors fight back because they believe it will harm the environment and tilt the balance of political power.
Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (1698-1760), known as the Ba'al Shem Tov ("Master of the Good Name"), is one of the most beloved and celebrated, yet elusive, figures in Jewish history. Today, Jews worldwide – and even non-Jews – revere him as the founder of the Hasidic movement, a 18th-century offshoot of Judaism that promotes a mystical interpretation of the Bible, and as a model of piety and spirituality. The documentary A FIRE IN THE FOREST explores the life and legacy of the Ba'al Shem Tov through interviews with religious leaders and scholars, and on-location footage. The title derives from a tale about rabbis finding a hidden fire in the forest where they could appeal to God for help and have their prayers answered.
Conservative Rabbi Marc Soloway invites us on his personal journey to modern day Ukraine to visit the graves of the Hasidic Masters as he tries to establish a connection with the famous names that have so long occupied a place in his imagination.
Everyday life in the Waks household is a logistical challenge of monumental proportions. There are two minibuses to move the family around and the kitchen in its suburban Melbourne home has five ovens for kosher cooking. The family follows an orthodox form of Judaism. School, work, synagogue and socialising all take place within a tight-knit Jewish community.
Forty years after leaving his ultra-Orthodox roots, journalist Tuvia Tenenbom returns to Jerusalem's Mea Shearim. With rare access, he uncovers a world that remains a mystery to outsiders.
Mendy is a young Brookyln Hasid who leaves the strict rules of his insular and repressive community to join his childhood friend, Yankel, who is living securlary in Manhattan. Mendy's struggle to integrate his faith and traditions with the modern world are influenced by his growing friendship with Bianca, Yankel's free spirited Brazilian roommate.
Based on an autobiographical novella by Ivan Olbracht, the film tells the story of Hanele Safarová, who grows up just after the First World War in a little Ruthenian schtetl which, in true Hassidic fashion, awaits the arrival of the Messiah. But Hanele decides to follow the Zionists instead. She moves to the city to prepare for her departure to the Promised Land, where she meets a successful businessman named Ivo Karadzic, who has renounced Judaism to become a free-thinker. Their love for each other doesn’t only drive Hanele’s parents to distraction, it also threatens to destroy the entire community in the schetl.
When their high school drama department falls victim to budget cuts, two teachers from the Bronx find an unlikely solution to their money problems: yaniv, a little-known card game with a thriving underground gambling scene in the Hasidic Jewish community.
Jerusalem's greatest badchan (Hasidic wedding comedian), wrecked his career because of liquor and a big mouth, gets a second chance as the sidekick of the famous American Badchan Meshulam. At the wedding, everything spins out of control.
Shmuel, a Hasidic cantor in Upstate New York and distraught at the untimely death of his wife, struggles to find religious solace, while secretly obsessing over how her body will decay. As a clandestine partnership develops with Albert, a local community college biology professor, the two embark on a darkly comic and increasingly literal undertaking into the underworld.
After impulsively shaving off his beard and sidelocks, a young Hasidic man experiences a nightmarish transformation that leads him right back to where he started. Over the course of one painful night, Eli Eisenstein will come to realize that it’s much easier to shave your beard than to shed who you are.
Ron Padgett (1942- ) is a poet and editor whose artistic career took off during his teenaged years in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There, along with Joe Brainard and Dick Gallup, he produced The White Dove Review, an art and culture magazine. Both Padgett and Brainard serendipitously moved together to New York City, where Padgett studied at Columbia University under the tutelage of Kenneth Koch and interacted with various Beat poets. He has taught poetry at various schools in the City, edited volumes such as the Full Court Press and Teachers & Writers Magazine and written volumes of poetry including 2013’s Collected Poems which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He also wrote “memoirs” of both Brainard and fellow Tulsan Ted Berrigan.
Desperate to become as rich and successful as their idol, a trio of Michael Jackson impersonators hustle their way into Hollywood agencies, are accosted by paparazzi, and cross paths with Grammy-winning musicians as the American dream seems tantalisingly close. But as they perform for dollar bills and sleep in their car, the reality of the ruthless entertainment industry they dream about hits home.
To celebrate the "birthday" of the famous Improv comedy club, 6 famous comedians get up on stage and do their thing. However, to make things interesting, while each one does his particular routine, the other 5 comics sit at the back of the stage and heckle the performer. This video is especially notable for Martin Mull issuing a zinger at Robin Williams that shuts-up the otherwise motor-mouthed comic for at least 5 seconds.
Documentary Of AKB48 : Show Must Go On is the 2nd AKB48 documentary. The movie feature various moments of 2011, such as Team 4 formation, Maeda Atsuko winning the 3rd Senbatsu Election, first dome concert in Seibu Dome and the Dareka no Tame ni Charity Project.