How to Make Challah
dir. Sarah Rosen
Documentary
12 min
2023
New York
Using a grainy video tape camera, my aunt Jane filmed her 97-year-old immigrant grandmother baking challah in her tiny kitchen on the Upper West Side. It was 1975. Almost 50 years later, I continued this ritual by filming my aunt Jane (now 80) baking challah herself for the first time. "How to Make Challah" moves between the 1975 tape of my great-grandmother and the 2022 tape of my aunt Jane, plus archival footage from Jewish life at the turn of the 20th century. The film documents generations of women performing this cultural-religious ritual a half century apart, highlighting the age-old significance of conversation between women in the kitchen. It shows how much a day of baking bread can reveal about class, culture, family, history, and women’s expanding freedom in America. Most of all, the film is about what we pass on to the next generation and what we leave behind.
Directed and Produced by: Sarah Rosen
Edited by: Matt Shapiro
Cinematography by: Emilija Gasic
Music by: Noah Fishman
Animation by: Shayna Strype
Festivals + Screenings (selected):
New York Jewish Film Festival, presented by The Jewish Museum and Film at Lincoln Center - World Premiere
Rooftop Films
Boston Jewish Film Festival - WINNER OF SHORT FILM COMPETITION
Philadelphia Jewish Film and Media Festival - WINNER OF AUDIENCE AWARD FOR BEST SHORT
Moscow Jewish Film Festival - WINNER OF JURY AWARD
Cleveland International Film Festival
Budapest Jewish-Israeli Film Festival - Budapesti Zsidó és Izraeli Filmfesztivál
Toronto Jewish Film Festival
UK Jewish Film Festival
Lehrhaus
Berlin Brandenburg Jewish Film Festival