By Addie Morfoot for Variety
Variety spoke with Lau-Lavie and DuBowski ahead of “Sabbath Queen” closing the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival on July 30.
Amichai, why did you want this doc to be made?
Lau-Lavie: I understood pretty early on that I am in the service of a story that is unfolding, which is basically reimagining the tradition we inherited and being very bold about it from a feminist, moral, humanitarian aspect. So, in the service of that storytelling is my toolbox and Sandi’s interest in recording what I was doing and amplifying, it just felt like an excellent way for both of us to be in service of this bigger idea of this re-imagining of our tradition and broadening the moral horizon.
Sandi, the docu takes a deep dive into so many polarizing issues. How do you plan on getting people from both sides of the fence to see the film?
DuBowski: I waited 13 years to ask Amichai’s brother Rabbi Benny Lau (a celebrated Orthodox rabbi in Israel) to sit down for an interview and he agreed. That interview really became a spine of the movie. These are two brothers who are politically and ideologically not necessarily on the same page, but are in deep love and respect each other. They model, for me and I think for many people in the world, what it means to disagree in this time. That is a model of how to take this to people who aren’t necessarily in the choir.
Lau-Lavie: I think choirs these days need a lot of preaching. We really need support. I’m in Jerusalem at the moment. It’s painful to be a peace-loving, progressive, empathic person in the middle of trauma. So, I might not get to everybody. They might not be able to hear it, but the ones who need to hear it need to hear it. I was at an event last week with 8,000 Israelis who gathered in an arena to absolutely imagine peace between Palestinians and Israelis. It feels like one crack and we were like, “Haha, we are preaching to the choir,” but the choir needs it. That’s true in the States, too. It’s only going to get worse as the presidential election comes nearer. But beyond that, the more conservatives, the more religious traditional, the more suspicious of liberal politics, they might not even show up to this film because there is “Queen” in the title or the word sabbath is too Jewish. So, I don’t know. Honestly, I think that is going to be very tricky marketing and strategic storytelling, which is the challenge for Sandi’s team.
