The story of Yiddish theater superstar Pesach'ke Burstein and his performing family is a documentary filmmaker's dream. It features a relatively unfamiliar but fascinating subject, a cast of colorful characters, and all the intrigue and family conflict of a Victorian novel — plus musical interludes. And happily, filmmaker Arnon fashioned these riches into a dream of a documentary that begins with Pesach'ke, born in Poland to a Orthodox Jewish family on Passover, 1896. At the age of 15, Pesach'ke ran away from home to become an actor — a fate one interviewee describes as being "worse than becoming a Goy" among Orthodox Jews — and joined a traveling Jewi...
Released:
1999
Rated:
NR
Length:
85 mins