100 years of fish, family, and the fiercest Jewish grandmas you'll ever meet.
Four generations of a Jewish immigrant family create Russ and Daughters, a Lower East Side lox and herring emporium that survives and thrives. Produced to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the store, this documentary features an extensive interview with two of the original daughters for whom the store was named, now 100 and 92 years old, and interviews with prominent enthusiasts of the store including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, chef Mario Batali, New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin, and 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer. Rather than a conventional narrator, the filmmakers bring together six colorful longtime fans of the store, in their 80s and 90s, who sit around a table of fish reading the script in the style of a passover Seder. - Written by Julie Cohen
Acting
The 100-year-old daughters steal every scene.
Direction
Passover Seder framing device is *chef's kiss*.
Writing
Fan-narrators read script like Torah portion.
Director
Julie Cohen
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Russ and Daughters is now officially 'an American treasure'—the Smithsonian requested artifacts in 2015, making pickled herring museum-worthy.
The 'appetizing' store concept (dairy + fish, no meat) exists because kosher law forbids mixing meat and dairy—R&D invented a whole culinary category.
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