With: Hadas Yaron (Shira), Yiftach Klein (Yochay), Irit Sheleg (Rivka), Chaim Sharir (Aharon), Razia Israeli (Aunt Hanna), Hila Feldman (Frieda), Renana Raz (Esther), Yael Tal (Shifi), Michael David Weigl (Shtreicher), Ido Samuel (Yossi), Neta Moran (Bilha)
Director/Screenplay: Rama Burshtein
Producer: Assaf Amir
Production co: Norma Productions
Photography: Asaf Sudry
Editor: Sharon Elovic
Music: Yitzhak Azulay
REVIEWS

"Set in Tel Aviv in an Orthodox Hassidic family, this film follows 18-year-old Shira’s search for a husband after her older sister dies in childbirth.  Marriage is a central focus in this community and here the concept of ‘a good match’ is especially complicated, with a grief-stricken mother who has more than Shira’s happiness in mind.  Watching Shira negotiate the labyrinth of familial pressure, religious precedent, and her own burgeoning sentiment is both painful and beautiful – there are no easy choices to be made and the viewer travels back and forth with Shira as she struggles to take ‘the best path’. 

​Writer-director Rama Burshtein investigates the complexities of her own community without judgement: instead we must evaluate for ourselves the strengths and challenges of this closed group and its religious and cultural practices.  Ultimately we can only sympathise with characters who are caught, as we all are, between their wishes and desires and the very particular world they find themselves in.  What does ‘doing what you want’ look like when you are bound tightly in a loving familial context, upon which your happiness depends?"

— Jo Randerson, NZIFF 2013
FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Canterbury 
Monday, 16 April, 7:30pm

Waitati
Tuesday, 1 May, 8:00pm

Nelson
Thursday, 21 June, 6:00pm

Timaru
Tuesday, 7 August, 7:00pm

Whanganui
Monday, 27 August, 7:00pm

Auckland
Monday, 1 October, 6:30pm

Dunedin
Wednesday, 17 October, 7:30pm

Hamilton
Monday, 29 October, 8:00pm

New Plymouth
Wednesday, 7 November, 6:00pm

Palmerston North
Monday, 19 November, 6:00pm
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Tauranga
Wednesday, 28 November, 6:15pm
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