The Making Of Unorthodox | Netflix

And action!

It's huge.

It's mind blowing.

I have to keep reminding myself
that they're not real.

It's like a historical movie, actually,
what we are doing here.

This is 90 percent of my filming
experience, here?

Is like this.

Come over here to do a show
set in Williamsburg,

to do it in Berlin, it kind of,
you know, plays with my head.

A series in Yiddish, for me also,
personally, I think it's a great thing.

Going to be dealing with a language
that no one understands.

I mean, we're dealing with costumes
and rituals no one understands.

But the essence of what's happening,
that's universally understood.

This very beautiful and unique story

that shows kind of like, both worlds.

I don't think it's a story about
the existence of God, or something.

It's more about...the right to
have your voice.

And people like me never really
had that opportunity.

We never saw ourselves reflected back
in the stories being told

in popular culture.

So we didn't really know
how to create our own stories.

I think this is the first show, ever,
to accurately portray

the Hasidic community.

These are real people, and their
experiences are very universal,

and very relatable.

When the community watches it,
and there is somebody like me,

watches it, and sees, this girl
lived exactly like she lives.

And, she was able to muster
the courage to follow her dreams.

Maybe this girl can, too.

When I met Ann and Alexa,
and I became friends with them,

I realized, if anybody is ever going to
really be able to grasp

what the story is about,

and to really execute it in a way

that is going to have a
positive cultural impact,

it's these women.

After I met Deborah,
i read her book,

and I thought it was amazing.

I mean, I read it in one sitting.
I couldn't put it down.

And then, she said:

"Well, why don't you make my book
into a TV show?"

Anna and I wanted to make a show
for a while,

in which we could work through
a lot of the topics

we discuss a lot, especially
about being Jewish in Germany.

To me, the story is about
a young woman, who

is searching for herself,

and she is searching for
her community in the world.

Esther is a 19 year old girl.

She was born and raised in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn,

in the community called Satmar.

- Don't forget, Esty.
He speaks first.

She grows up in a very
religious neighborhood.

And, frees herself from an
unhappy arranged marriage,

and flees to Berlin.

Her story is unique, and romantic.

We just felt it was so different,
that somebody would leave

this very insular community
in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York,

and find their way here,
out of choice.

From a very young age,
she always felt very different.

She's always been told
that she is very different,

because of the fact that
she always has questions within her,

and she has that 'chutzpah,'
you can say.

The Satmar Jews are a
Hasidic community,

originally from the town of
Sate Mar, in Hungary.

They are mostly descendants
of Holocaust survivors, and

started by Holocaust survivors,
in New York, after the war.

This kind of makes them
a little bit different

than a lot of other
Hasidic communities,

because they really developed
what they were about, after the war.

It is founded by people who are
struggling with the most immense trauma.

For the first generation,

I would say even for the first
two generations,

this trauma was a very driving force

behind the ideological structures
of this community.

The Satmar community is also special,
in that Yiddish is their native language.

I think they can be credited,
to some degree,

with keeping Yiddish alive.

- But why Berlin?
- Think about it.

- What?
- Her crazy mama lives in Berlin!

It was very important to us,
to make changes in the present-day story,

from Deborah Feldman's real life.

Because she is a young woman,
she is a public figure,

she is a public intellectual,
and we wanted Esther's

Berlin life to be very different
from real Deborah's Berlin life.

So, in a sense, the flasbacks
are based on the book,

but the present-day story
is entirely made up.

You have to go beyond cliché,

beyond our projection
into what the life might be.

in a community like this.

It was very important to us
to get not just the look and feel

and costumes, and rituals,
and everything correct, but

to inhabit the ideas of
these characters' worlds,

in a way that felt authentic,

but also heightened,
because it's television.

I just, in general, feel like,
when you're showing

different communities,
especially communities on the margins,

you want to get the details right.

We knew it was so important
to get people on board,

not just as actors, but behind
and in front of the camera,

who are from this community.

So one of the first people we hired
was Eli Rosen,

who is an actor, translator,
and kind of specialist,

when it comes to Yiddish.

Eli Rosen was like our guide.

He was our spirit guide.

He not only translated the scripts,

he coached the actors in Yiddish,

he helped us with all the
cultural details,

and he played the rabbi.

When I was given the opportunity
to help ensure

that it was representative,
and that it is authentic,

um...I, uh...

jumped at it.

Directing the scenes
which are set within or

in the ultra-Orthodox world,

I would have been lost,
without this advice.

We had two research trips
to New York,

with our entire team,
to not just watch and look,

and touch everything we saw,
but we got access

to meeting people who are
still in this community.

We really tried to offer
our heads of department, as much access.

These trips, of course,
are like a hunt, for impressions,

for feeling atmosphere,

for just watching,
for just taking things in.

It was a kind of
image-based research.

We looked around.
We took so many pictures.

And we tried to inhale this world

by the visual impressions we got.

While we were taken around New York,

we went on a tour of Williamsburg,
by an ex-Satmar woman,

who had grown up there,
she had her first child there,

and had been married, and everything.

She walked us through
a lot of Williamsburg,

and a lot of traditions within
the exterior buildings.

Silke was taking lots of notes
for her world,

and I was taking lots of notes

for the characters
that I was going to be building.

We started shooting the past,
like the Williamsburg parts,

and then, we moved to Berlin.

So, suddenly, something felt different.

Also, it's moving from Yiddish to English,
and different outfits and makeup.

Suddenly, the hair -- and there was
so many different hairs, right?

There is bald, and there is this,
and there is the wig, and --

Esty has so many faces.

I had spoken to Deborah Feldman,
before we started the project,

about her personal experience
of transitioning

from Satmar modesty clothing,
to Western clothing.

She said it took her a long time,
and it was a slow process,

and she pushed herself
to experience

wearing T shirts,
and showing her arm,

and showing more flesh.

She said it did take a long time.

So, I wanted to show that.

I wanted to reflect Deborah's experience,
with Esther.

It was so hard to create, in a way,

a production that is much like
a period film,

that plays in the world of today.

To create the costumes for that
was a very big challenge.

Much like the sets that played
in two worlds,

we had costumes that played
in two worlds.

Plus, a character who has an arc,

not just in her character,
but in her looks, and her clothes.

Our production designer
knew which exterior locations

we were going to be using there,

and built, made to measure, here,

to sync with those exteriors.

We have complicated locations,
because we shot

most of the New York part,
here in Berlin.

- Why Germany?

The other movies that we did before,

we can [film] through the windows,

and now, we do everything inside.

So, maybe, this is a very first
experience, for me. Yeah.

Wolfgang is an incredible
cinematographer.

He has shot some of the most
incredible documentaries.

He is able to work with natural light.

He is able to work spontaneously.

We joke that he is like
the hand held steadicam.

He is good at combining
different kinds of light,

which, because we were matching
set interiors with real exteriors,

the lighting was very delicate,

and Wolfgang was
incredible at that.

When I watch material
in post production,

I think it is very difficult

to see what was inside,
and what was outside,

what was in New York,
and what was shot in Berlin.

- She's not here?

Shira Haas is a talent.
What a face.

I mean, she only needs
to move a part of her face,

and can make you cry,
or laugh.

Shira is just an
enormous, enormous actress.

So talented. So gifted.
Such a hard worker.

It was pure joy.

Every day, it was pure joy,
to work with Shira.

I think that what is really
beautiful in Esty,

I think that she
really really really,

even though she has been told
all her life that she is different,

even though she feels like
she is different,

she always tries very, very hard
to fit in. Really.

And, she really wants to find
that feeling of belonging and happiness.

We have, sort of, four main characters.

I mean, Esther is the main character,

but the other main characters
are all Satmar characters,

who are dealing with being
inside and outside at the same time.