Feb 27 - Sabbath Queen (2024)
Kriterion, Amsterdam
Roeterstraat 17027/02 18:30Director: Sandi DuBowski
With: Amichai Lau-Lavie
Spoken language: English, Hebrew, Yiddish
Subtitles: English
Info: 2024 | USA | 105 min
Date/Time: Friday February 27th 18:30
Twenty-one years in the making, Sabbath Queen follows Amichai Lau-Lavie’s journey from radical drag queen to influential Rabbi of a God-optional, artist-driven New York synagogue.
Filmed over 21 years, Sabbath Queen follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s epic journey as the dynastic heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis including the Chief Rabbis of Israel. He is torn between rejecting and embracing his destiny and becomes a drag-queen rebel, a queer bio-dad, and the founder of Lab/Shul—an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation. Sabbath Queen joins Amichai on a lifelong quest to creatively and radically reinvent religion and ritual, challenge patriarchy and supremacy, champion interfaith love, and stand up for peace. The film interrogates what Jewish survival means in a difficult rapidly changing 21st century.
After the screening, we invite you to a Shabbat celebration in Kriterion’s café. We’ll provide wine/grape juice, challah and candles — The Psychedelic Tzaddik — a.k.a. Julie Weitz — will welcome the Sabbath queen.