After trying his hand at the film industry in Kyiv, Mendele returns to his village, where the love of his life - the rabbi's daughter - was supposed to await him. His return and the conversations he has with the villagers, compounded by political changes, escalate into growing chaos. Ukraine, June 21st, 1941. Mendele, a young film director from Kyiv, is on a visit to his shtetl not far from Sokal, Galicia. In the provincial town, where Soviets throw their way around and orthodox and secular residents are, as ever, at odds, many resent Mendele for having left. With only a few hours remaining until Sabbath, the boy needs to visit his father and his one-time bride-to-be Yuna, the latter soon to marry to his arch-rival Folye. All the while, German tanks lurk on the other side of the river... The movie, shot primarily in black and white and in Yiddish and Ukrainian, vividly describes an eastern European/Jewish world that no longer exists. To exemplify this gaping void, the filmmakers dropped the "E" from the film's title. The Ukrainian-French co-production involved the construction of an entire shtetl, inclusive of a consecrated synagogue which was to serve as a museum. And yet, in a very bitter irony of history, it was destroyed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine...Q&A director Ady Walter!

PARTNER: UKRAINE FILM FESTIVAL

Atlanta Jewish Film Festival 2023: Nagroda Emerging Filmmaker Ady Walter, Berlin Jewish Film Festival 2023: Najlepszy Film Fabularny / Best Feature Film, Rome Film Festival 2023: Nagroda Publiczności / Audience Award, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival Konkurs 2023, Toronto Jewish Film Festival Konkurs 2023, New York Jewish Film Festival Konkurs 2023, Washington Jewish Film Festival Konkurs 2023.

29-10-2023 16:00, Muzeum POLIN

Language: YIDDISH, UKRAINIAN   Subtitles: POLISH AND ENGLISH