SCREENINGS

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (2004)

RESTORED 35MM PRINT WITH COMPLETE NEW SUBTITLES

This classic melodrama captures the sentimental, emotional characters and the convoluted plots and fantastic coincidences which dominated the Second Avenue Yiddish theaters. Focusing on a labor dispute in the garment district of New York City, the film survives as an important historical document highlighting the hardships of the Jewish immigrant experience in America.

Motl, a poor laborer, loving husband and new father, leads cloakmakers in a strike for better working conditions. When he is severely injured by strikebreakers, his wife, Esther, and infant son are left destitute. Desperate to save her starving child, Esther gives him up for adoption to a wealthy couple, and then commits suicide. The richly-rendered beautiful Yiddish songs by Sholem Secunda featuring Cantor Leibele Waldman and Joel Feig's famous choir are a good example of the bittersweet melodrama in the finest tradition of the Yiddish theater.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

"A sorrowful and tragic melodrama in the best Yiddish tradition..."
- The Film Daily 1/24/40

PURCHASE DVD

HOME USE ONLY $36.00 plus shipping Home Use Only DVD (Not for Classroom/Institutional Use) Does not include Public Performance Rights Home Use Policy (pdf)

INSTITUTIONAL USE $72.00 plus shipping Classroom/Institutional Use Only DVD Does not include Public Performance Rights Institutional Use Policy (pdf)

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The National Center For Jewish Film Brandeis University, Lown 102, MS053, Waltham MA 02454 P: (781) 899 7044, F: (781) 736 2070

Motl the Operator
Motl der Operator

USA, 1939, 88 minutes
Yiddish with NEW English Subtitles
Director: Joseph Seiden

$72 Institutional Use DVD
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$36 Home Use DVD
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Public Exhibition 35MM, Beta Rental also available