With KADOSH (meaning Sacred) director Amos Gitai paints a powerful picture of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem's isolated Mea Shearim district. KADOSH follows two sisters through two events initiated by the community's Rabbi: an arranged marriage and an arranged divorce. Although Malka (Meital Barda) is in love with Yaakov (Sami Hori), who broke his connection to Orthodox Judaism when he joined the army, she consents to marrying the man to whom the Rabbi has willed her, and she quickly finds herself trapped in a miserable, abusive relationship. Meanwhile, Malka's sister Rivka (Yael Abecassis), is forced to end her 10-year marriage to Meir (Yoram Hattab), because she has not fulfilled her obligation to bear him a child. The film presents difficult issues both about the way that women are devalued and mistreated in this community, and about the extent to which the rigors of this traditional faith prohibit any experience of the outside world. At the same time, Gitai's fly-on-the-wall approach allows the viewer to carefully observe the rituals, beliefs, and relationships in this ultra-Orthodox world, and understand more about a culture that was essentially lost to the Holocaust, but that is preserved in Mea Shearim.
Theatrical release: February 16, 2000.
KADOSH was screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, the first feature-length Israeli film to do so in 25 years. Gitai's KIPPUR followed next.
KADOSH won Best Foreign Independent Film, Foreign Language at the British Independent Film Awards.
DVD Features:
Region 0
Keep Case
Full Frame - 1.33
Additional Release Material:
Documentary: "The Making of Kadosh" (24 min.)
Trailers: Original Theatrical Trailer
Interactive Features:
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Director of Photography
Renato Berta: Cinematographer
Production Designer
Miguel Markin: Production Designer
Review 1:
"...Chillingly captur[es] the austerity of a world bound by fanaticism and prayer." -- Rating" A-
Source: Entertainment Weekly
p.68 12/08/2000
Review 2:
"...Sensitive....The screenplay movingly shows the painful conflict when human emotions clash with religious teachings....The cast is excellent..." -- 4 out of 5 stars
Source: Box Office
p.148 09/01/1999
Review 3:
"Gitai manages to convey a sense of both the rich culture and impassioned faith of the community and of its infuriating insularity, dogmatism and misogynism."
Source: Uncut
p.116 08/01/2000
Review 4:
"...The sombre mood has a hypnotic, resonant flicker..."
Source: Total Film
p.93 08/01/2000
Review 5:
"...Somber, elegiac....Beautiful..."
Source: Los Angeles Times
p.F14 03/17/2000
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