FROM
BERLIN
STORIES FROM
ENGLAND AND
JERUSALEM
<< NEW >>
FEB. 2002
STORY FROM
THEATRICAL
RELEASE
IN NYC
UPDATE
FROM
SUNDANCE
BANNED IN
MEXICO +
STORIES FROM
EASTERN
EUROPE
JERUSALEM
PREMIERE
+ SAN FRAN
HAPPENING
back to
screenings
Dear friends,
Good news. Trembling
Before G-d was awarded two prizes from The 2001 Berlin Film Festival.
Story of the Berlin experience follows...
The 2001 Teddy Award for Best Documentary
The Teddy Award is the most prestigious international award for gay
and lesbian cinema. The nine members of this international jury represented
USA, Germany, UK, Italy, Norway, Canada, Ukraine, and The Netherlands.
"The Teddy Award for the best documentary film goes to Trembling Before
G-d by Sandi Simcha DuBowski for its ground-breaking discovery of the
secret life of lesbian and gay Jews all around the world and of their
fight for recognition of their beliefs."
The International
Federation of Film Societies, Special Mention
Founded in 1947,
FICC-IFFS is the international umbrella organization for film societies
and cine-clubs. Jurors hailed from German, Switzerland, France, and
Italy.
"Taking compelling
examples, this moving documentary shows the seeming incompatibility
of the Jewish Orthodox rules of faith and homosexuality. The meticulously
researched material interweaves a theological view with personal experience
of life, and gets the audience involved in contemplating a deep conflict."
Bringing Trembling
Before G-d to Berlin from Sundance was fascinating. The Festival propelled
Trembling onto an international stage and reactions were phenomenal. Creative
collaborator/ editor Susan Korda and I were thrilled how widely the film
resonated.
At our last screening,
an older man stood up and said, "I am a survivor of the Holocaust. When
I was in Poland, these men would come to the shul on Rosh Hashanah and
Yom Kippur. They would stand without tallises (the prayer shawls worn
by married men) in the back and cry. I asked my rabbi, who were these
(unmarried) men? He said they were the rashes (the evil ones). Only years
later did I realize who they were. After being here today, I want to thank
you for making this film because we are all G-d's children."
Rabbi Steve Greenberg,
the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi accompanied me to Berlin with Father
Ludger Viefhues, a German Jesuit priest who is gay. We held two powerful
roundtables - "Sexuality and Spirit: New Perspectives from Within the
Tradition: A Jewish-Catholic Gay Dialogue in Berlin" and did an underground
meeting at a church with a number of Catholic gay priests who did not
want to be exposed. Ludger's beautiful story of the trip is below.
On Friday night,
we took over a Jewish restaurant in East Berlin (yes) where we koshered
the kitchen (yes). We did a Shabbat dinner with fifty people - German,
Dutch, American, British, Israeli, Australian, Jews, non-Jews, gay, straight.
Having Rabbi Steve lead us in a rousing niggun of ?Chiri biri bam? was
extraordinary. One felt that such song was not heard in the neighborhood
for a long time. Next door, we prayed in a synagogue that had survived
the war where the chazzan or cantor had presided for 35 years during the
Wall.. We then walked across the city that night back to the West, a two
hour trek past war memorials and museums, parks and commerce. One of the
members of the gay Jewish community in Germany accompanied us and told
a tale of only discovering he was Jewish twelve years ago. His grandparents
had committed suicide in 1933 on the day after Hitler?s rise to power.
His mother was then raised by a non-Jewish family and he was born in East
Germany. Unfortunately he did not have papers proving he was Jewish (not
surprising) and the Jewish gay community had split between those gay Jews
who had papers to prove they were Jewish and those who did not and whose
identity could not be trusted.. A few refused to come to Shabbat because
they did not want to be "Jewish theater," exoticized by philo-Semitic
Germans. Ironically, German police guard every Jewish institution with
metal detectors and guns.
So in this post-war, post-Wall Germany we threw a party - Trembling Before
Hedwig - John Cameron Mitchell and my celebration of our films - Hedwig
and The Angry Inch and Trembling - with our friends in Berlin. Photos and
story are at INDIEWIRE.
It looks very likely
that we will have a German and Israeli theatrical release in addition
to France. Many US distributors and international TV broadcasters are
interested in acquisition and we have been invited to festivals worldwide.
International press from Berlin will be available on our Website in the
coming weeks.
P.S. On the Teddy Award: Imagine carrying a stone with a strange bear on
top through Customs....