SHTTL

Synopsis

A filmmaker returns from Kiev to his rural village to marry the love of his life. She is expected to marry the Rabbi’s son, 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 Barberossa. Today, there are no such villages in existence; the production fully reconstructed a traditional ‘Shtetl’ outside of Kiev. 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.