Minyan

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Movie
Original title Minyan
Country of production United States
original language English , Yiddish , Hebrew , Russian ,
Publishing year 2020
length 118 minutes
Rod
Director Eric Steel
script Daniel Pearle ,
Eric Steel
production Luca Borghese ,
Ben Howe
music David Krakauer ,
Kathleen Tagg
camera Ole Bratt Birkeland
cut Ray Hubley
occupation

Minyan is a film drama by Eric Steel that premiered on February 22, 2020 as part of the Berlin Film Festival . In the film, 17-year-old David, who comes from a Russian immigrant family, begins to act out his homosexuality in the East Village scene.

action

While David passes the time in the library, his grandfather Josef Broszky visits the Jewish Center of Coney Island

Coming from a Russian immigrant family, 17-year-old David lives in Brighton Beach , New York, which is characterized by Jewish life . David's father, a former boxing trainer, now works as a physiotherapist, his mother worked as a dentist in Russia. After the death of his wife, his grandfather Josef Broszky wants to get out of the apartment because he can no longer afford it and can no longer bear the memories.

At the Torah school you can learn what a " minyan " is. Such a Jewish prayer community must consist of at least ten religious Jews in order to be able to hold a service. So that his beloved grandfather receives one of the coveted, subsidized apartments, he and David agree to Rabbi Zelman, who decides on the allocation, to complete the minyan so that a proper service can take place in the prayer room of the apartment complex.

When Josef moved into the facility in December 1987 and David also lived with his grandfather despite his mother's resistance, they quickly met Itzik and Herschel, an ex-soldier who survived the Russian labor camp and an intellectual who suffers from a chronic illness that is not only part of the Minjan, but also the neighbors. During a visit, David quickly realizes that the two men, who have lived together in the building since their wives died, are not just friends.

David has just started to act out his homosexuality in the East Village scene , where he occasionally visits a gay bar called "Nowhere". It is the time when HIV and AIDS are just emerging. At the school, David receives a college recommendation from his teacher, who is reading James Baldwin with them . The bartender at “Nowhere” had also read his Giovanni's Room , a book about a young American in Paris who denied his same-sex love for the bartender Giovanni, which in the end contributed to a tragedy. The bartender takes David home, who is completely drunk after a party. In the following period, the two have sex regularly. In his apartment he keeps a list on which he notes the names of friends who have become infected with HIV or have died of AIDS.

When Itzik dies, his son tells him about the many children his father had in Russia and takes almost all of the furniture out of the apartment. Because Herschel is now supposed to leave the apartment and the neighbors are already showing interest in it, David is committed to ensuring that he can stay.

production

Film title and staff

The title of the film refers to the minyan , a service that consists of at least ten religious Jews, here waiting for the tenth person to pray (Diaspora Museum, Tel Aviv)

Minyan is based on a short story by the Latvian-Canadian writer David Bezmozgis . The title of the film refers to the minyan , in Judaism the quorum of ten or more Jews who are religiously mature, which is necessary to hold a full Jewish service . The word minyan means counting or numbering.

Directed by Eric Steel , best known for his controversial documentary The Bridge , which deals with suicide jumps from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. In his adaptation of Bezmozgi's story, Steel moves the plot from Toronto to Brighton Beach, in the Russian-Jewish district in south Brooklyn, and in doing so sketches an atmospherically dense picture of the city before gentrification in November 1986. At the same time, the 1963 born connects In his feature film debut, the director used the literary source with his own experiences as a homosexual youth in the New York gay scene in the East Village of the 1980s, which was shaken by AIDS. Variety's Peter Debruge writes in his review that Steel is concerned with certain parallels between what the Jewish people experienced during the war and a disease that in its early days seemed to target and kill a certain group.

You can read about Minyan in the Teddy program at the Berlinale: "In his debut feature film, he describes unobtrusively and with quiet humor how a young person compares social attributions - immigrant, Jew, homosexual - with their own feelings and learns to redefine them." Steel makes his directorial debut in a feature film with Minyan . He wrote the script together with Pearle.

Cast and filming

The role of the protagonist David was cast with the film and stage actor Samuel H. Levine . Ron Rifkin plays his grandfather Josef Broszky, Brooke Bloom and Gera Sandler Daniel's parents Rachel and Simon. Christopher McCann and Mark Margolis can be seen in the roles of the new neighbors Herschel and Itzik. Richard Topol plays Rabbi Zalman, Chinaza Uche Daniel's teacher. Alex Hurt plays the bartender Bruno, Chris Perfetti Davis' buddy, and neighbors Eric and Eli Rosen the rabbi of the Jewish Center.

Filming took place in the New York boroughs of Bronx and Brooklyn . The Coney Island Jewish Center featured in the film, also known as Brighton Beach Jewish Center, which Grandfather Joseph visits regularly, is a historic synagogue and community center in Brooklyn. Josef's new apartment is in Scheuer House - Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Ole Bratt Birkeland acted as cameraman .

Film music and publication

The film music was composed by Kathleen Tagg and David Krakauer , an American clarinetist who is considered one of the most famous klezmer musicians of our time. They also draw on this Jewish folk music tradition in their work for Minyan , paired with clarinet solos and a violin riff.

From February 22, 2020, the film was presented in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival and celebrated its premiere here. There it was also shown as part of the Teddy Awards , a separate competition. From the end of August 2020 it will be shown at the virtual Outfest Los Angeles, an LGBTQ + film festival.

reception

Reviews

Eva-Christina Meier from the taz believes that with a good sense of hint and concreteness, Eric Steel carefully merges the different worlds in this outsider story. Fortunately, the filmmaker ultimately resisted attempting to recount the analogies in the script between Shoah and AIDS survivors, according to Meier.

David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter writes that the film becomes more and more exciting as it progresses, and that its grainy images convey a soulful intimacy. The cast was good across the board, and Samuel H. Levine was consistently convincing as the contemplative center of all of this and brought sensitivity, heart and also an intelligence to the central role of David. Even the particularly experienced professionals like Ron Rifkin and Richard Topol conveyed a lot, although they say relatively little.

Peter Debruge of Variety noted in his review, Levine was with his Sal Mineo -eyes, his Monty Clift-like undoubtedly handsome silhouette, the brooding forehead and the boxer nose, but he was not the nice guy who nowadays leading male roles seems to monopolize. With his restrained body language and his introverted manner, he corresponds more to a male ideal of the 1950s. The sex scene in the film, in which David loses his virginity, is a brilliant shot, according to Debruge, if only because it manages to capture both the ecstasy and the awkwardness of his first time. The film, however, is more intellectual than physical and devotes more attention to David's neighbors than to the character 's libidinal aspirations, which only appear on the edge . It is more about the question of whether David's desire for men is compatible with his role in the family and community, and whether he can be both Jewish and gay. The answer to this question can be found in the last scene of the film.

IndieWire's Jude Dry writes that while there are too many older men in David's life and the narrative lacks the cathartic finale, Steel deserves praise for his film. Dry quotes Rabbi Zalman, played by Topol, who decides on the allocation of the subsidized apartments and ultimately explains why he lets Herschel stay in the apartment: “Thieves, adulterers, homosexuals. I take them all. Without her we would never have our Minyan . "

Awards

Berlin International Film Festival 2020

  • Nomination for Best First Feature
  • Nomination for the Teddy Award for best feature film

Outfest Los Angeles 2020

  • Awarded the Grand Jury Prize - Best US Narrative Feature ( Eric Steel )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Films 2020: Minyan. In: teddyaward.tv. Retrieved February 8, 2020.
  2. ↑ a b c d e David Rooney: 'Minyan': Film Review. In: The Hollywood Reporter, February 22, 2020.
  3. ↑ Minyan. In: berlinale.de. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  4. ^ A b Eva-Christina Meier: Eric Steels "Minyan" at the Berlinale: The colors of Brighton Beach. In: taz.de, February 28, 2020.
  5. ^ A b Peter Debruge: 'Minyan': Film Review. In: Variety, March 27, 2020.
  6. ↑ a b Jude Dry: 'Minyan' Review: A Brighton Beach Boy Finds His Tribe in Elegant Gay Drama. In: indiewire.com, February 24, 2020.
  7. ↑ Films 2020: Minyan. In: teddyaward.tv. Retrieved February 10, 2020.
  8. ↑ Dino-Ray Ramos: Outfest Los Angeles Sets 'The Obituary of Tunde Johnson', 'Monsoon', 'Two Eyes' And More For Virtual LGBTQ Film Fest. In: deadline.com, August 10, 2020.
  9. ↑ GWFF Award for Best First Feature. In: berlinale.de. Retrieved February 8, 2020.
  10. ↑ Daniel Reynolds: Outfest Announces 2020 Winners and Surprise 'Encore Week'. In: advocate.com, August 31, 2020.