In this short film a group of school children perform a darkly comedic version of the classic song Anatevka, from Fiddler on the Roof, for their parents, with new lyrics exploring the modern tribulations of Jewish communal anxiety.
*Click below to watch a teaser for Anatevka*
Anatevka had its world premiere at the Toronto Female Feedback Film Festival in December of 2022, where it won best short. Its US premiere occurred in January of 2023, at Lincoln Center, as part of the New York Jewish Film Festival. New Filmmakers New Orleans awarded it Best Short Short, and it received the Best Micro Short award from the Stockholm Short Festival. It has screened at the Columbus Jewish Film Festival, the Austin Micro Film Festival, in Texas, the New Jersey Jewish Film Festival, the Charleston Jewish Film Festival, and the XX Punta del Este Jewish Film Festival, in Uruguay.
___________________________
Director Statement
Everybody knows Fiddler on the Roof. A lot of Jews, of course, are raised on it, and usually have its songs memorized from a young age, as I did. But its reach goes way beyond that. Lin-Manuel Miranda planned and performed a version of the song “To Life” from Fiddler as a surprise for his bride, at his decidedly not Jewish wedding. Throngs of theater lovers of all stripes attend its countless productions every year, on stages around the world. My Muslim, Pakistani father-in-law knew about and loved Fiddler before he had ever met an actual Jew. Despite having been written nearly 60 years ago, this show remains the most lauded, well known, adored, disseminated, and persistent example of Jewish cultural production we have.
Years ago, I attended a Fiddler themed birthday party for a girlfriend’s daughter. Alongside all the other adults, I watched a group of young Jewish ladies in pink ballet outfits, singing and dancing all the big hits from the show. One song they did not perform, I noticed, was my personal favorite from the musical, a sorrowful, sarcastic number sung by the ensemble about being forced to flee their beloved, poor, small village, Anatevka, due to the violent antisemitism perpetrated on them by their Christian neighbors. It’s a heavy, sardonic shrug of a song. Not the tone we typically associate with children’s birthday parties.
Yet Anatevka’s exclusion haunted me, as did the party in general. Why, I kept wondering, with so many powerful examples of Jewish art, does this one story stubbornly persevere, especially in America? My people have not lived in shtetls for a very long time, thankfully, and though hatred of our community certainly and terrifyingly continues, and currently grows, the story of American Jewish life is largely one of safety and success. Yet this tale, of our poverty and victimhood, of being fundamentally unsafe, remains central.
So, I decided to write and direct a short film parody of the original Anatevka song, with new lyrics directly examining my tribe’s stubborn focus on our well-earned victimhood, despite having so many other rich sources of meaning in our tradition. My Anatevka is a darkly funny take on how we often teach Jewishness to young people AS victimhood, and the implications of defining this ancient, beautiful, very much alive identity by scarcity, instead of abundance.