Fill The Void

GREAT MOVIES: Rama Burshtein's Fill The Void (Israel, 2012) - 2012VENic Best Actress winner. With her first dramatic feature, writer-director Rama Burshtein has created a work that is very likely unprecedented: a woman's view of Tel Aviv's ultra-orthodox Hasidic community from the inside. Typically, a story about a devout 18-year-old Israeli being pressured to marry the husband of her late sister, would include the option of the woman declaring her independence in the modern fashion. Such a choice is not even on the table in this cloistered, intimately rendered world where religious law, tradition and the rabbis' word are absolute. A graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem and Hassidic herself, Burshtein startlingly brings to life a world known to few in this provocative, undeniably talented debut from a most unlikely source. 2012NYFF, 2012OPHIR, 2012TOR, 2012VENic, 2013OE, 2013PALM, 2013SUN. RATING: 9.