Trembling Before G-d (2001)

Built around intimately-told personal stories of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who are either gay or lesbian, this unprecedented feature documentary shatters assumptions about faith, sexuality and religious fundamentalism. It portrays a group of people who face a profound dilemma on 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 thousand-year old tradition.

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. Certainly this film is a MUST-SEE!

(In ENGLISH, YIDDISH & HEBREW with ENGLISH & SPANISH subtitles)

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L'Homme Est Une Femme Comme Les Autres (1998)

Simon Eskanazy, un jeune clarinettiste homosexuel d'origine juive, résiste à sa mère qui voudrait bien le voir marié. L'oncle de Simon, un riche banquier, lui propose de devenir son héritier, à une condition cependant : qu'il convole enfin et ait un descendant. Simon rejette tout d'abord cette proposition mais, expulsé de son appartement, il finit par répondre aux avances d'une cantatrice yiddish, Rosalie Baumann. Elle l'aime sincèrement et a décidé de rester vierge jusqu'au jour de son mariage. Par honnêteté, Simon révèle à Rosalie son homosexualité. Le mariage a tout de même lieu et il est consommé le soir même...

Simon Eskanazy is a young Jewish clarinetist who happens to be gay, resists the demands of his mother that he gets married. Simon's uncle, a wealthy banker, offered him to become his heir in one condition: that he finally ties a knot and gives the family a descendant. He refuses the proposal so he is evicted of his apartment and his luxurious allowance is cut, that's when he finally accepts the advances of a Yiddish singer, Rosalie Baumann. She loves Simon dearly and decides to remain a virgin until their wedding night. Simon honestly reveals his homosexuality to her and the wedding still continues...

L'HOMME EST UNE FEMME COMME LES AUTRES (MAN IS A WOMAN in the US) is an entertaining romantic dramedy that I really enjoyed watching and I have a feeling that a lot of you will do, too.

(In FRENCH & ENGLISH with ENGLISH & FRENCH subtitles)

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