BEYOND EYRUV

World Premiere

The border between a Hasidic community and the outside world is marked by an eyruv, a wire strung atop poles. For the faithful, this barrier represents ritual purity, turning a shtetl into a single home for the Sabbath rituals. But for the Hasidim it also marks an absolute separation from outsiders, a very real dividing line between their austere, rigidly controlled lifestyle and the secular modern world.

20-year-old Moshe was born and raised in a ultra-orthodox community in New York City and came of age in Israel, his whole existence bound by the eyruv. Filmmaker John Mounier follows Moshe as, with the help of his grandparents, he tries to adjust to life in secular New York after leaving his isolated Israeli community.

Moshe's experiences are notable not so much for their unique-ness, but for the fact that he struggles with the same things that every 20-year-old struggles with-academic discipline, sex and sexuality, the competing influences of friends and family. But unlike most twenty-somethings, the socio-cultural apparatus Moshe brings from his Hasidic background is largely inappropriate to help him face his new situation.

John Mounier's detailed and personal film explores the contradictions between the rigidity of the Hasidim and the freedoms of contemporary American society, in the process opening up both the shrouded Hasidic world and the "overexposed"-and exuberantly free-American mainstream.

-Caroline Small

DIRECTOR BIO
John Mounier makes his feature debut with BEYOND EYRUV. His second feature-length film, entitled WHISPERING THE WORDS OF GOD, covering life at-home and on-the-road with a large family of African-American gospel singers, is currently in production. John also works producing and directing shows for A&E and Discovery Health, and is currently producing/directing two series for the History Channel.

Print Source:
7th Art Releasing
7551 Sunset Blvd. Suite 104
Los Angeles, CA 90046
323.845.1455

PRECEDED BY...SHORT FILM ABOUT FAITH
Nikolai Østergaard
DENMARK, 2006, 15 MINUTES

A personal, lyrical film that explores the loss and return of faith, and the resurgence of hope that comes with its restoration. The film plays out like a prayer of its own.

Print Source:
Stinna Lassen
Nordisk Film A/S Film Production
Mosedalvej 14
DK-2500
Valby, Norway
stinna.lassen@nordiskfilm.com
+45.36.188.200

6/17 at 8:15 PM

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