Kaddish (1984)

This is the trailer for the 2021 4K Restoration of filmmaker Steve Brand's 1984 documentary KADDISH, a coming-of-age story about the fraught but loving relationship between Holocaust survivor Zoltan Klein and his activist son Yossi. It is about growing up as a child of survivors in the hotbed survivor community of Boro Park, Brooklyn, where planning escape routes through the Boro Park sewer system was not idle speculation. It is a film both about searching for a post-Holocaust Judaism and about the psychological ramifications of history. And it may very well serve as a primer for how to survive an apocalypse and remain human. The 2021 4K Restoration of KADDISH had its World Premiere in January 2022 at the New York Jewish Film Festival, co-sponsored by The Jewish Museum and Film at Lincoln Center. Our deepest thanks to the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Sundance Institute for funding for this restoration and to the amazing team at IndieCollect for lovingly restoring it. Completed in 1984, KADDISH was one of only two American to be selected for that year's New Directors/New Films series, presented by the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the film has gone on to widespread theatrical and non-theatrical distribution and has garnered critical acclaim including being listed by David Edelstein as one of the 10 Best Films of its year. KADDISH was selected for the Sundance Film Festival where it won a Special Jury Award in Documentary, and has been invited to be shown at international film festivals in Jerusalem, London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Verona and Nyon.