“IF YOU WANT TO TELL THE UNTOLD STORIES, IF YOU WANT TO GIVE VOICE TO THE VOICELESS, YOU’VE GOT TO FIND A LANGUAGE.”
- SALMAN RUSHDIE
features & SHORTS
CASTLES IN THE SKY (2023, 30 mins)
Malke, a Holocaust survivor and a beloved sex-ed teacher has secretly been slamming poetry in New York’s Lower East Side for the last three decades, defying all communal norms and laws. One day her transgressive pursuits are discovered by one of her bridal students. Is Malke willing to risk it all for her poetry?
THE TURN OUT (2018, 90 mins)
In a small town in Southern Appalachia, a trucker must decide if he will stand up and take action against sex trafficking at his truckstop. The Turn Out melds the testimony and talents of sex trafficking survivors, anti-trafficking activists, and truckers with the work of film professionals to create an unflinching docu-drama of moral dilemma and personal connection in the local landscape of Glouster, Ohio, Athens County, and Mineral Wells, West Virginia. (80 mins)
SUMMER (2018, 18 mins)
Two teenage girls in a Hasidic sleepaway camp, despite their every effort to maintain their purity, explore a forbidden book which leads them to a sexual awakening neither of them are prepared to encounter.
WILLIAMSBURG (2009, 50 mins)
Welcome to the Jewish quarters of Williamsburg. Hipsters have brought a new interest to the neighborhood but had it not been for the faith and tradition of Hasidic Jews, it would barely exist.
WRITE ME (2020, 7 mins)
Write Me follows an older woman who joins other survivors in reclaiming the histories tattooed on their bodies. The film is adapted from and driven by an award-winning poem, “After Auschwitz,” written by Deborah Kahan Kolb.
JUNIOR (2017, 28 mins)
A mother struggles with a new normal after her son is shot by an off-duty police officer.
WHERE IS JOEL BAUM (2012, 26 mins)
After a tragic accident occurs in her home, the Grand Rabbi’s wife must decide how to handle the unexpected consequences.
DIVAN (2004, 77 mins)
To reclaim an ancestral couch upon which esteemed rabbis slept, Pearl Gluck travels from her Hasidic community in Brooklyn to her roots in Hungary. Along the way, a colorful cast of characters gets involved – the couch exporter, her ex-communist cousin in Budapest, a pair of matchmakers, and a renegade group of formerly ultra-orthodox Jews. Divan is a visual parable that offers the possibility of personal reinvention and cultural re-upholstery.
WORKS FOR HIRE
Ice Cream Cake (2019, 2 mins)
Pearl Guck, Jennifer Howd, and writer Mara Altman create a parody ad about the awkwardness of talking about climate change for the New Jersey Nature Conservancy.
BOOGIE (2007, 6 mins)
As a contributing producer for WTIU’s the weekly special, Pearl Gluck celebrates her completion of a motorcycle training course by traveling to The Boogie, a popular biker fest in Lawrence County.
