[Reader-list] [Announcements] Film Screening: Trembling Before God

[mayur at sarai.net]

When: Wednesday, 9th February, 9:30 pm
Where: Stein Auditorium at the Habitat Centre

Trembling Before G-d is an unprecedented feature documentary that shatters
assumptions about faith, sexuality, and religious fundamentalism. Built
around intimately-told personal stories of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who
are gay or lesbian, the film portrays a group of people who face a profound
dilemma - how to reconcile their passionate love of Judaism and the Divine
with the drastic Biblical prohibitions that forbid homosexuality. As the
film unfolds, we meet a range of complex individuals - some hidden, some
out - from the world's first openly gay Orthodox rabbi to closeted, married
Hasidic gays and lesbians to those abandoned by religious families to
Orthodox lesbian high-school sweethearts.

Many have been tragically rejected and their pain is raw, yet with irony,
humor, and resilience, they love, care, struggle, and debate with a
thousands-year old tradition. Ultimately, they are forced to question how
they can pursue truth and faith in their lives. Vividly shot with a
courageous few over five years in Brooklyn, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, London,
Miami, and San Francisco, Trembling Before G-d is an international project
with global implications that strikes at the meaning of religious identity
and tradition in a modern world. For the first time, this issue has become
a live, public debate in Orthodox circles, and the film is both witness and
catalyst to this historic moment. What emerges is a loving and fearless
testament to faith and survival and the universal struggle to belong.

Sandi Simcha DuBowski (Director/Producer) is a filmmaker and writer based
in New York. His current project, Trembling Before G-d is currently in
theatrical release in the United States, Israel, Canada, Germany, and in
2003, France, UK, Argentina, and Czech Republic (in the U.S. with New
Yorker Films). Trembling Before G-d was launched at New York's Film Forum
to incredible audience, critical, and box office response. It broke Film
Forum's Opening Day box office records previously held by Paris Is Burning
and is opening in over 80 U.S. cities. Trembling has been the recipient of
twelve awards including The Teddy Award for Best Documentary at the Berlin
Film Festival, The Mayor's Prize for the Jewish Experience at the Jerusalem
Film Festival, The GLAAD Media Award for Best Documentary, and The Grand
Jury Prize for Best Documentary at OUTFEST Los Angeles. The film was
nominated for the 2002 Independent Spirit Awards for the IFC/Directv Truer
Than Fiction Award. The L.A. Weekly named it one of the 10 Best Films of
2001. It is being co-produced and broadcast by Keshet/Channel Two in
Israel, the first co-production with U.S. producers and will be broadcast
in Israel in late Spring 2003. It is airing on BBC, The Sundance Channel,
ARTE, Denmark's Channel 2, Australia's ABC, Netherlands’ NIK, and other
TV stations worldwide in 2003-2004.

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