Shttl
Shttl (Yiddish: שטטל, Ukrainian: Шттл) is a 2022 Ukrainian–French one-shot drama film written and directed by Ady Walter and starring Moshe Lobel and Saul Rubinek. The film depicts the lives of a Jewish shtetl on the eve of Operation Barbarossa. It was filmed in Ukraine six months before the 2022 Russian invasion.
| Shttl | |
|---|---|
Film poster | |
| Directed by | Ady Walter |
| Written by | Ady Walter Samuel Fischler |
| Produced by | Jean-Charles Lévy Yuriy Artemenko Ryta Grebenchikova Olias Barco |
| Starring | Moshe Lobel Saul Rubinek Anisia Stasevich Petro Ninovskyi Antoine Millet |
| Cinematography | Volodymyr Ivanov |
| Edited by | Jérémie Bole du Chaumont |
| Music by | David Federmann |
Production company | Ukrainian Producers Hub Apple Tree Vision Forecast Pictures |
Release dates | October 13, 2022 (BFI) October 26, 2023 (Ukraine) December 13, 2023 (France) |
Running time | 114 minutes |
| Countries | Ukraine France |
| Languages | Yiddish Ukrainian |
Shttl premiered at the 2022 London Film Festival, and won the Audience Award one week later at the Rome Film Festival.
The missing 'e' in the title (normally spelled "shtetl") is a reference to Georges Perec's La disparition, a 1969 novel which doesn't contain the letter. The missing 'e', in French pronounced the same way as "eux" (they), represents, according to Walter, their absence, the void left behind in the Shoah; Perec's father died in the war, and his mother was killed in Auschwitz.
On September 8, 2023, it was announced that Shttl is on the shortlist to represent Ukraine for the 96th Academy Awards.