Yiddish Horror Shorts

Join us for a screening of four Yiddish-language horror shorts that interrogate questions of Jewish identity and faith through uncanny events, dybbuks and vampires.  Both sessions will be introduced by Monash University Professor, Rebecca Margolis, author of The Yiddish Supernatural on Screen. 

Shehita – directed by Dean Gold
Canada, 2018, 25 mins
A Yiddish-speaking Jewish community in Quebec begins to unravel after a horrific discovery stirs up demons from the past. Tensions rise between a young farm owner, a kosher inspector, and a rabbi who must make a grave decision before the eve of Shabbat closes in.  

Striya – directed by Paige Campbell
USA, 2024, 8 mins
In the middle of the night, the beis din of a small medieval town is embroiled in an argument over whether – and how – to put teenage Gele to death for an unnamed offense. Her father, Ansel, soon arrives to make his case for allowing her to live, but his pleas fall on deaf ears. Meanwhile, Gele escapes and makes her way to the rabbi’s home, where the true horror of her supernatural transformation is revealed.

Tzadeikis – directed by Emily Cheeger
USA, 2020, 21 mins
After eating of a fish that chokes her Rebbe at a Friday night gathering, Neshama, a pious Hasidic woman living in Boro Park, Brooklyn, becomes possessed by his spirit. As his voice and beard begin to take over her body, transgressing social norms despite her best intentions, her life and the status quo of her community begin to unravel.

Seed of Doubt – directed by Daniel Daniel
UK, 2024, 23 mins
When a young Jewish woman begins to lose her faith, she must find God or risk giving birth to an unimaginable terror.