Director Sandi DuBowski used 1,800 hours of footage to make ‘Sabbath Queen'

Boston Globe

4 days ago

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Through family interviews and archival footage, 'Sabbath Queen' navigates nuanced conversations surrounding religion, the patriarchy, sexuality, interfaith marriage, heritage, and the inevitability of change. The documentary also touches on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and includes footage of Lau-Lavie at protests after the July 2014 bombing of a playground in Gaza. The film ends with Lau-Lavie's response to the attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.
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"Sabbath Queen" director Sandi DuBowski spent over two decades collecting footage for his documentary.
Provided
This Sunday, July 13, DuBowski will join the Coolidge Corner Theatre for a screening of 'Sabbath Queen' at 2 p.m., followed by a post-film discussion — his first Q&A at the theater since the screening of 'Trembling Before G-d' in 2002.
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Ahead of the screening, DuBowski spoke with the Globe about the film's creation, audiences' responses, and how his team distilled 1,800 hours of footage into an hour and 45-minute 'record of a life,' as DuBowski described it.
Q. When did you know that it was going to be 21 years, and what was the process like?
A.
It unfolded very intuitively and organically. I don't think that I knew the map. This was a film where it's not the year in the life of a school or a contest. It's really just submitting to the unknown and allowing serendipity and synchronicity, and just not knowing.
[The story] kept revealing itself as the process unfolded. Even in the editing room, we were making choices about the shape of the film … and the editing took six years. It was a mountain of material. So, that was definitely a Herculean task.
Q. How did you know when you were done with filming?
A.
In some ways, act one and act two of the film were the kaleidoscope of Amichai's identity. He has so many worlds that he lives in, as such a multi-faceted character.
Then you get to act three, and it's like, what is going to be the dramatic arc? We really felt that it was this question of interfaith marriage, which was forbidden by conservative Judaism, where he was ordained — that became a distillation of so many of the issues [featured in]
the film. Once he decided to do interfaith marriage as a conservative rabbi, he was kicked out and forced to resign. That became a dramatic end to the film, and we decided to wrap the story.
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Then, October 7 happened, so we had to really reckon with how, or if, we would pull October 7 into the film, and in what way.
Q. I found it really impactful how his brother, [Rabbi Binyamin Lau
, said Amichai
taught him how to understand a person's differences by watching Amichai forge his own path through life and rabbinical school.
A.
When his brother says, 'The closet is death,' I mean, that is just astonishing. I wept when I heard him say that during the interview, because that is growth. [Amichai] is a queer person who's really affected the world, and his brother had the capacity and the deep soul to embrace it.
I just think [Lau-Lavie's] family is really quite amazing, because, look, we're living in such toxic, polarized times. So when we are reaching across differences and we're doing the difficult dialogue work, that's where we need to be.
Q. What has the response to the doc been like?
A.
I've been hearing how people are deeply, deeply affected by the movie. Some people are coming multiple times to see it. And they're coming back, and they're bringing their kids and their parents and their neighbors and relatives. … I have all these trans, nonbinary, and queer teenagers who are coming to see the film, who feel so deeply affirmed by it.
The kind of Judaism that Amichai is offering is so different than what so many people have grown up with, or experience, and really don't know how to access. I mean, to have a God-optional Judaism — something that really upends patriarchy — that's really like, so queer and so about equality. [Judaism] that really can be critical around Israel.
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Q. Given the current conflict between Israel and Palestine, what do you hope audiences take away from 'Sabbath Queen'?
A.
Amichai is from a thousand years of rabbis. His uncle was the Chief Rabbi of Israel. He is deeply rooted, and he is deeply critical. Amichai is on the street protesting against the war and for cease-fire, for peace, and against the occupation. He's on the street in Israel, as we speak, at protests. He's actually doing a tour
[with the documentary] right now. There's a screening with Rabbis for Human Rights in Jerusalem, and he did a screening in Jaffa with Standing Together, which is a movement of Israelis and Palestinians for social justice against the war. So, we're taking this
[film] to Israel. Palestinian peace activists are coming to see the film in New York and London and in Jerusalem and other places. I think it's giving Amichai and other people who are fierce critics a platform.
SABBATH QUEEN
With director Sandi DuBowski. July 13 at 2 p.m. Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St., Brookline. Tickets start at $14.
Interview was edited and condensed.