BRJFF: REDEMPTION
BATON ROUGE JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL
Menachem (Moshe Folkenflik) is a widower and single father who is a modern-day Job. Not long after losing his wife to cancer, he now faces the prospect of losing his six-year-old daughter Geula (Emily Granin) as well. Through it all, Menny remains devout, even though one can sense that his faith may be fraying at the edges. Desperate for money to pay for an experimental treatment that may save Geula (her name is the Hebrew word for "redemption") after chemo has failed, Menachem reaches out to his three friends from his younger, wilder, pre-Hassidic days. They used to be a band of some minor renown, The High Beams, with Menny as their frontman and chief songwriter. Now he wants them to play wedding gigs, trading on their old cachet of cool so they make the money he needs for Geula's care. But getting the boys back together - among them Menny's non-religious brother Goolie (Yonaton Galila) - opens up old wounds and recriminations, along with new temptations for the now-devout Menachem. (From Cinema Scope)
*The film is in Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Yossi Madmoni, Boaz Yehonatan Yaacov
