You have never seen a movie quite like Joshua Weinstein‘s “Menashe.” The film was shot by Weinstein on a low-budget, in near cinema-verite style, deep in the heart of New York City’s Hasidic community, and it’s presented in Yiddish with English subtitles. Talk about a gamble even for an indie production.

The film chronicles the trials and tribulations of recently widowed Hasidic Jew Menashe (Menashe Lustig in his big-screen debut) whose community forces his son to be raised by his openly contemptuous brother in-law.

Continue reading ‘Menashe’: Director Joshua Weinstein & His Star On Hasidic Life & The Pleasures Of Quiet Drama [Interview] at The Playlist.

An embraced recourse to traditional Judaism that surfaced in the eighteenth century, Hasidism grew in popularity as it mystically concerned itself with self-preservation apart from secular society. While its following experienced a steep decline during the 19th century, the Hasidic lifestyle birthed large communities in Israel and New York, which takes us to a man who bears universal pain independent from the confining implications of religion — the separation from his child.

As A24’s first foreign language film (Yiddish), the semi-biographical “Menashe” follows its titular father-figure through the pain of losing custody of his child due to Hasidic practice.

Continue reading ‘Menashe’ Humanizes Hasidic Life In A Pensive, Emotional Drama [Review] at The Playlist.

Back in January, A24 made headlines for its acquisition of “Menashe,” one of the breakout hits at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and the first foreign-language film to be acquired by the studio. The debut narrative feature by documentary filmmaker Joshua Weinstein, “Menashe” was universally loved by critics who saw it at the festival, with The Hollywood Reporter pointing to the film’s nonprofessional cast of actors as “wonderfully natural screen presences” who deliver an “absolutely sincere” story of growing up as part of an Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn. 

Continue reading Experience Brooklyn As You Never Have Before In The Gentle First Trailer For A24’s ‘Menashe’ at The Playlist.