SHTTL (film)

The 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany is shown through the life of inhabitants of a Yiddish village at the border of Poland.

A filmmaker returns from Kyiv to his rural village to marry the love of his life. He is expected to marry the Rabbi’s daughter, which disrupts the balance of the whole town. In one unflinching shot, this film presents a day in the life of a Jewish village before it disappears. SHTTL is the story of the inhabitants of a Yiddish Ukrainian village at the border of Poland, 24 hours before the Nazi invasion, known as Operation Barbarossa. Today, no such villages exist; the production fully reconstructed a traditional shtetl outside of Kyiv. Following the filming, the set was to be turned into a museum but has since been destroyed in the ongoing political crisis between Russia and Ukraine.

2023 film, 114 minutes, Yiddish with English subtitles.

Part of East Bay International Jewish Film Festival