"Shtetel" is an ambitious film, mostly in Yiddish and filmed in one shot in black and white. A typical Jewish town is shown on the eve of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
In the end, the morning when she wakes up to the massacre is also described as "the day of the massacre" The film, directed by Eddie Walter who also co-wrote it with Shmuel Fischler, was screened in the past two years at a number of festivals and was released in Ukraine last October, but at this stage it has not yet been purchased for distribution in Israel. The premiere of the film in Israel as part of the festival provided a rather rare opportunity to watch the film, which on the face of it, although it demands quite a bit from the viewer, may be of interest to quite a few Israelis. The basic plot is romantic: the main character is Mendel, a talented and smart but complicated young man, who returns to the town where he grew up with charged emotions.