Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times
Marlyn Vinig, rear, leads a Haredi girls-only drama class in Jerusalem.
Tony Gentile/Reuters
The director Rama Burshtein, left, on the red carpet with her husband at last month’s Venice Film Festival.
AT the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot this month, dozens of Israeli women in the insular world of the ultra-Orthodox Haredim had an extra bounty to celebrate: an opportunity to go to the movies.
Films for and by Haredi women were relatively unknown outside this tightknit faction until the director Rama Burshtein unveiled her feature “Fill the Void” at the Venice Film Festival last month. The film, which earned the ingénue Hadas Yaron a best-actress honor there and later played the New York Film Festival, was praised by critics, who noted that Ms. Burshtein’s technical expertise belied her sparse résumé.
In fact, while “Fill the Void” was Ms. Burshtein’s first film for secular as well as religious viewers, she has spent nearly two decades making movies for the women of her sect — films featuring only actresses and without violence, sex and swearing. And she wasn’t alone: Ultra-Orthodox women in Israel have been making movies for some time now — about six a year — according to strict Haredi rules: Men and women may never be shown together on screen; plotlines considered subversive or counter to Haredi beliefs are forbidden; and when the credits roll, the audience must have a lesson or moral to take home. The rules also mean that audiences are strictly segregated by sex.
Male Haredi directors have long been making films (to be seen by men and boys only) with the help of a few production houses. Films by women, however, are still self-financed. They are shown at wedding halls during breaks from school and the holiday periods of Sukkot, Hanukkah and Passover. And though the Haredim shun aspects of modernity, the banquet-hall plastic seats are packed for the showings.
“It’s an event,” said Dina Perlstein, a 46-year-old mother of eight who lives in the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Bnei Brak and has made eight films, the newest of which, “Thin Ice,” opened over Sukkot. “This community doesn’t watch TV. So when the holidays arrive and there’s a movie, they’re like, ‘I want a movie right now.’ ”
Ms. Perlstein’s films are so popular that after being screened in Israel, they are shown to audiences in the United States and Europe. Her movies have the distinction of generally eking out a profit once all the tickets are sold (for an average 50 shekels, or about $13, each). Ms. Perlstein was not specific but said her films tend to yield millions of shekels at the “box office.”
Beyond the initial rules, the rabbis decide what constitutes kosher cinema. “I consult with my rabbi every step of the way,” said Ruchama Mandl, a 31-year-old filmmaker, teacher and mother of six.
Still, nothing is guaranteed. In “The Dreamers,” a documentary by Efrat Shalom Danon about these female Haredim filmmakers, Ms. Mandl is devastated after her rabbi reverses himself and deems her film “Closed” unfit for younger audiences because the action revolves around a teenage girl who rebels, ever so slightly, against her mother. Ms. Mandl and her husband took out a 50,000-shekel loan (about $13,000) to make that film, and they are struggling to repay it.
But some of her colleagues, like the film teacher Marlyn Vinig, say the secret lies in being stubborn. “When you really, really believe in what you do, the rabbis don’t say no,” said Ms. Vinig, who wrote the book “Orthodox Cinema” and is working on her doctorate in that subject as she raises seven children. “The Halakha” — Jewish law — “doesn’t forbid women from acting. The problem is when she is singing or dancing or something like that.”
Even with rabbis’ blessings, however, Haredi religious women who want to make movies face their neighbors’ questions and occasional scorn. “There are people who say it’s a waste of time,” said Tikvah Stoloff, an actress, 46, and mother of five.
Ms. Stoloff runs a popular wig shop out of her Jerusalem home and waited to perform until her children were older. Now that she has allowed herself to act, she said, she wouldn’t let gossip get in her way.
“In general, it’s not like I don’t care, but that’s not what would stop me from doing things that I feel are right,” she said. “Yes, there’s something to being scared that I’m going to be looked down upon. But I’m doing something that I love.”
Stage acting is more familiar to the Haredim than filmmaking, and several women-only acting courses are available. Film directors’ options are more limited.
Nearly a dozen film schools are scattered across Israel, but none are geared toward the Haredim. For ultra-religious students, courses are offered at some vocational schools and girls’ seminaries, which women often attend before marriage.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 19, 2012
In an earlier version of this article, the picture caption with the photo of Ruchama Mandl misstated the religious affiliation of the film director Efrat Shalom Danon. She is secular, not a member of the Haredim.
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