WEBVTT

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And action!

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's huge.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's mind blowing.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I have to keep reminding myself
that they're not real.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's like a historical movie, actually,
what we are doing here.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is 90 percent of my filming
experience, here?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Is like this.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Come over here to do a show
set in Williamsburg,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to do it in Berlin, it kind of, 
you know, plays with my head.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A series in Yiddish, for me also,
personally, I think it's a great thing.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Going to be dealing with a language
that no one understands.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I mean, we're dealing with costumes
and rituals no one understands.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But the essence of what's happening,
that's universally understood.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This very beautiful and unique story

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that shows kind of like, both worlds.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I don't think it's a story about
the existence of God, or something.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's more about...the right to
have your voice.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And people like me never really
had that opportunity.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We never saw ourselves reflected back
in the stories being told

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in popular culture.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So we didn't really know
how to create our own stories.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I think this is the first show, ever,
to accurately portray

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the Hasidic community.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
These are real people, and their
experiences are very universal,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and very relatable.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When the community watches it,
and there is somebody like me,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
watches it, and sees, this girl
lived exactly like she lives.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And, she was able to muster
the courage to follow her dreams.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Maybe this girl can, too.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When I met Ann and Alexa,
and I became friends with them,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I realized, if anybody is ever going to
really be able to grasp

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what the story is about,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and to really execute it in a way

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that is going to have a 
positive cultural impact,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it's these women.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
After I met Deborah, 
i read her book,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I thought it was amazing.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I mean, I read it in one sitting.
I couldn't put it down.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And then, she said:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Well, why don't you make my book
into a TV show?"

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Anna and I wanted to make a show
for a while,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in which we could work through
a lot of the topics

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we discuss a lot, especially
about being Jewish in Germany.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
To me, the story is about
a young woman, who

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is searching for herself,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and she is searching for
her community in the world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Esther is a 19 year old girl.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
She was born and raised in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the community called Satmar.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- Don't forget, Esty. 
He speaks first.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
She grows up in a very 
religious neighborhood.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And, frees herself from an
unhappy arranged marriage,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and flees to Berlin.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Her story is unique, and romantic.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We just felt it was so different,
that somebody would leave

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this very insular community
in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and find their way here,
out of choice.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
From a very young age,
she always felt very different.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
She's always been told
that she is very different,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because of the fact that
she always has questions within her,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and she has that 'chutzpah,'
you can say.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Satmar Jews are a
Hasidic community,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
originally from the town of
Sate Mar, in Hungary.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They are mostly descendants
of Holocaust survivors, and

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
started by Holocaust survivors,
in New York, after the war.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This kind of makes them
a little bit different

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
than a lot of other
Hasidic communities,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because they really developed
what they were about, after the war.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It is founded by people who are
struggling with the most immense trauma.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
For the first generation,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I would say even for the first
two generations,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this trauma was a very driving force

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
behind the ideological structures
of this community.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Satmar community is also special,
in that Yiddish is their native language.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I think they can be credited,
to some degree,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with keeping Yiddish alive.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- But why Berlin?
- Think about it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- What? 
- Her crazy mama lives in Berlin!

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was very important to us,
to make changes in the present-day story,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from Deborah Feldman's real life.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because she is a young woman,
she is a public figure,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
she is a public intellectual,
and we wanted Esther's

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Berlin life to be very different
from real Deborah's Berlin life.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So, in a sense, the flasbacks
are based on the book,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but the present-day story
is entirely made up.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You have to go beyond cliché,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
beyond our projection
into what the life might be.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in a community like this.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was very important to us
to get not just the look and feel

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and costumes, and rituals,
and everything correct, but

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to inhabit the ideas of
these characters' worlds,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in a way that felt authentic,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but also heightened,
because it's television.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I just, in general, feel like,
when you're showing

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
different communities,
especially communities on the margins,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you want to get the details right.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We knew it was so important
to get people on board,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
not just as actors, but behind
and in front of the camera,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who are from this community.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So one of the first people we hired
was Eli Rosen,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who is an actor, translator,
and kind of specialist,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
when it comes to Yiddish.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Eli Rosen was like our guide.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He was our spirit guide.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He not only translated the scripts,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
he coached the actors in Yiddish,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
he helped us with all the
cultural details,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and he played the rabbi.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When I was given the opportunity
to help ensure

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that it was representative,
and that it is authentic,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
um...I, uh...

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
jumped at it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Directing the scenes
which are set within or

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the ultra-Orthodox world,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I would have been lost,
without this advice.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We had two research trips
to New York,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with our entire team,
to not just watch and look,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and touch everything we saw,
but we got access

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to meeting people who are 
still in this community.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We really tried to offer
our heads of department, as much access.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
These trips, of course,
are like a hunt, for impressions,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for feeling atmosphere,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for just watching,
for just taking things in.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was a kind of
image-based research.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We looked around.
We took so many pictures.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And we tried to inhale this world

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by the visual impressions we got.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
While we were taken around New York,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we went on a tour of Williamsburg,
by an ex-Satmar woman,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who had grown up there,
she had her first child there,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and had been married, and everything.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
She walked us through
a lot of Williamsburg,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and a lot of traditions within
the exterior buildings.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Silke was taking lots of notes
for her world,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I was taking lots of notes

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for the characters
that I was going to be building.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We started shooting the past,
like the Williamsburg parts,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and then, we moved to Berlin.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So, suddenly, something felt different.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Also, it's moving from Yiddish to English,
and different outfits and makeup.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Suddenly, the hair -- and there was
so many different hairs, right?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There is bald, and there is this,
and there is the wig, and --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Esty has so many faces.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I had spoken to Deborah Feldman,
before we started the project,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
about her personal experience
of transitioning

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from Satmar modesty clothing,
to Western clothing.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
She said it took her a long time,
and it was a slow process,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and she pushed herself 
to experience

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
wearing T shirts, 
and showing her arm,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and showing more flesh.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
She said it did take a long time.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So, I wanted to show that.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I wanted to reflect Deborah's experience,
with Esther.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was so hard to create, in a way,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a production that is much like
a period film,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that plays in the world of today.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
To create the costumes for that
was a very big challenge.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Much like the sets that played
in two worlds,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we had costumes that played
in two worlds.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Plus, a character who has an arc,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
not just in her character,
but in her looks, and her clothes.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Our production designer
knew which exterior locations

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we were going to be using there,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and built, made to measure, here,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to sync with those exteriors.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We have complicated locations,
because we shot

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
most of the New York part,
here in Berlin.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- Why Germany?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The other movies that we did before,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we can [film] through the windows,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and now, we do everything inside.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So, maybe, this is a very first 
experience, for me. Yeah.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Wolfgang is an incredible
cinematographer.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He has shot some of the most
incredible documentaries.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He is able to work with natural light.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He is able to work spontaneously.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We joke that he is like
the hand held steadicam.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He is good at combining
different kinds of light,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which, because we were matching
set interiors with real exteriors,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the lighting was very delicate,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and Wolfgang was 
incredible at that.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When I watch material
in post production,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I think it is very difficult

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to see what was inside,
and what was outside,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what was in New York,
and what was shot in Berlin.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- She's not here?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Shira Haas is a talent.
What a face.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I mean, she only needs
to move a part of her face,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and can make you cry,
or laugh.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Shira is just an
enormous, enormous actress.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So talented. So gifted.
Such a hard worker.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was pure joy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Every day, it was pure joy,
to work with Shira.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I think that what is really 
beautiful in Esty,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I think that she 
really really really,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
even though she has been told
all her life that she is different,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
even though she feels like
she is different,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
she always tries very, very hard
to fit in. Really.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And, she really wants to find
that feeling of belonging and happiness.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We have, sort of, four main characters.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I mean, Esther is the main character,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but the other main characters
are all Satmar characters,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who are dealing with being
inside and outside at the same time.