Eighteen-year-old Shira is the youngest daughter of the Mendelman family. She is about to be married off to a promising young man of the same age and background. It is a dream come true, and Shira feels prepared and excited. On Purim, her twenty-eight-year-old sister, Esther, dies while giving birth to her first child, Mordechay. The pain and grief that overwhelm the family postpone Shira's promised match. Everything changes when a match is proposed to Yochay-Esther's late husband-to a widow from Belgium. Yochay feels it's too early, although he realizes that sooner or later he must seriously consider getting married again. When the girls' mother finds out that Yochay may marry the widow and move to Belgium with her only grandchild, she proposes a match between Shira and the widower. Shira will have to choose between her heart's wish and her family duty. She will find out that the void which she must choose exists only within her heart.
Acting
Hadas Yaron's face does everything dialogue cannot.
Direction
Burshtein's insider view refuses easy judgment.
Cinematography
Cramped frames mirror Shira's shrinking choices.
Director
Rama Burshtein
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
First feature shot entirely in the Haredi community of Tel Aviv; Burshtein is Orthodox herself, making this an unprecedented insider's gaze.
Hadas Yaron was 20, secular, and had to learn Yiddish and religious law while filming—her outsiderness mirrors Shira's trapped performance.
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