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Ours du Meilleur documentaire - Festival
de Berlin 2001
Trembling Before G-d is an unprecedented feature documentary that
shatters assumptions about faith, sexuality, and religious fundamentalism.
Built around intimately-told personal stories of Hasidic and Orthodox
Jews who are gay or lesbian, the film portrays a group of people
who face a profound dilemma - how to reconcile their passionate
love of Judaism and the Divine with the drastic Biblical prohibitions
that forbid homosexuality. As the film unfolds, we meet a range
of complex individuals - some hidden, some out - from the world's
first openly gay Orthodox rabbi to closeted, married Hasidic gays
and lesbians to those abandoned by religious families to Orthodox
lesbian high-school sweethearts.
Many have been tragically rejected and their pain is raw, yet with
irony, humor, and resilience, they love, care, struggle, and debate
with a thousands-year old tradition. Ultimately, they are forced
to question how they can pursue truth and faith in their lives.
Vividly shot with a courageous few over five years in Brooklyn,
Jerusalem, Los Angeles, London, Miami, and San Francisco, Trembling
Before G-d is an international project with global implications
that strikes at the meaning of religious identity and tradition
in a modern world. For the first time, this issue has become a live,
public debate in Orthodox circles, and the film is both witness
and catalyst to this historic moment. What emerges is a loving and
fearless testament to faith and survival and the universal struggle
to belong.
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