Shoah feature film “Shttl” filmed by Ukraine was submitted by Upgrade Productions

EXCLUSIVE: Matt Brodlie and Jonathan Kier’s Upgrade Productions have acquired the worldwide distribution rights for the Shoah film Shtlwhich screened at the London and Rome film festivals this fall (where it won the audience prize).

The film was previously on Bron Releasing but is no longer on the schedule after Bron had to streamline its film business.

Black and white drama Shtl follows the residents of a Yiddish-Ukrainian village on the eve of the Nazi invasion known as Operation Barberossa.

The production, which was shot in Ukraine last year (with an almost entirely Ukrainian crew), completely recreated a traditional shtetl (or village) outside Kiev to recreate life before the Nazi onslaught (since there are few traces of that life remaining). It was later destroyed by the Russian invasion earlier this year. After filming in 2021, the set (including a blessed and consecrated synagogue) was donated to the Ukrainian government and was to be turned into a museum for educational purposes – but unfortunately it no longer exists.

Pic was written and directed by documentary filmmaker Ady Walter, making his feature debut. The film stars Saul Rubinek (don’t forgive), Moshe Lobel, Antoine Millet, Anisia Stasevich, Pyotr Ninevsky, Daniel Kenigsberg and Emily Karpel.

The film will have its US premiere on January 16 at the New York Jewish Film Festival presented by The Jewish Museum and Film at Lincoln Center.

Walter said of the film: “Shtl is based on real historical facts and events depicting the Shoah. For years I have been obsessed with making a film about this catastrophe and I thought the only way to do it might be with a fictional story that shows life just before it disappears rather than the destruction and death that usually depicted in Holocaust films. . The Yiddish word for town is “shtetl”. So why the title Shtl? In 1969, author Georges Perec published Whose Mother Died in Auschwitz La Disparation. The letter E never appears in this French novel, which is almost impossible. Its absence indicates a cavity, an empty space, acrophobia, a gaping hole. Shtl valid by omitting the same letter. in the ShtlWe see a community that lives, loves, fights and is happy in the context of a world that is on the brink of collapse.”

He continued, “While the film announced the extreme brutality of the war that accompanied the German invasion, it naturally reflected the current war in Ukraine. The idea was to make the village (the building that was built) hand over to the Ukrainian authorities to create an educational space for Ukrainian children who can understand and feel what a shtetl and Jewish life in the countryside is like. It was destroyed by the attack on Ukraine. We know that fierce fighting took place around the set that we no longer have access to as the entire site has been cleared. This is the reality of war.”

The filmmaker says he is in contact with the Ukrainian team, but cannot talk further: “I am. But I can’t really talk about it for security reasons. And to protect their right to privacy in tragic times.”

Producers are Jean-Charles Levy (France) of Forecast Pictures, Olias Barco (Belgium) of Wild Tribe and Vlad Riashyn (Ukraine) of Star Media. The production designer is Ivan Levchenko (Ukraine), the cinematographer is Vladimir Ivanov (Ukraine), the costume designer is Elena Gres (Ukraine), and the film’s editor is Jeremie Bole de Chaumont (France).