Sabbath Queen West Coast Premiere: San Francisco Jewish Film Festival Closing Night

Sunday, July 30th 2024
1pm PDT
Piedmont Theatre
Oakland, CA

Join us for the Sabbath Queen West Coast and Oakland Premiere with Sandi DuBowski and Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie!

In the queer 90s, Sandi DuBowski filmed gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews in silhouette who were trying to reconcile their sexuality and their faith for his groundbreaking film Trembling Before G-d. Fast forward and DuBowski fixes his gaze on Radical Faerie Amichai Lau-Lavie, the “Sabbath Queen,” who emerges from her bathtub sipping Slivovitz on ice to greet the Shabbos. Amichai is Hadassah Gross, the ageless widow of six Hasidic rabbis, and the star of raunchy performance art cabaret shows. Sandi follows the epic cinematic journey of Amichai, the heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis who is torn between rejecting and embracing his ancestral destiny. We follow along as he becomes a queer bio-dad, a prince of peace, and the founder of Lab/Shul, an everybody friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation. Can Judaism reinvent itself in a rapidly changing 21st century? Can Rebbetzin Hadassah have it all?

There will be a Q&A with Sandi DuBowski and Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie following the screening.

Recipient of a 2023 JFI Completion Grant

Sponsored by the Firehouse Fund. Additional support provided by Lisa K. and Matt Chanoff and by Catapult Film Fund.

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