SHTTL

The missing “e” in shtetl represents absence. This remarkable film in Yiddish seems to be made in one shot, to signify the vibrancy of shtetl life. An energetic love story propels the action that hurtles toward catastrophe. Set on June 21, 1941, the day before the Nazis invaded, the shtetl, located on the western border of the Soviet Union, was wholly “recreated” by the film’s French producer in Ukraine and is now an open-air museum as yet undamaged by Russian missiles.