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.