As a fellow in residence at UnionDocs Collaborative Studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I was tasked with creating a short film about the neighborhood. In the past decade, Williamsburg, home to Latinos, Italians, Orthodox Jews, had attracted an increasing number of young hipsters. Having made a film about gentrification and art in the late nineties, and a newcomer to the neighborhood myself, I wanted to tell another kind of story.
I took to the streets with an audio recorder, crossing from the newly redeveloped waterfront, to the Puerto Rican block parties, to what felt like another country — Hasidic Williamsburg. It was there among the uniformity of black garments, beards, and furry hats, that I realized I was the only outsider. Men crossed the streets and averted their eyes. Children stared. I returned to Division Avenue, a street that literally divides Hasidic Williamsburg from Latino Williamsburg. I spoke with passersby. Had they ever wandered over — crossed the line? No? Why not?
I knew then that this is the story I wanted to tell — a story about boundaries, both real and imagined. When do we self-segregate? When do we traverse boundaries?
And then, I heard about the eruv, a wire that encloses the community to enable the carrying of objects on the Sabbath. It seemed the perfect metaphor. I envisioned an abstract film of birds perched on this wire, free to fly wherever they choose, and people below. Only, in my search for the eruv, I discovered that because Williamsburg’s eruv was highly controversial, this eruv remained hidden.
This didn’t bode will for the film, a visual medium. What to show? Determined to find it, I solicited the advice of Deborah Feldman, author of the bestselling memoir, Unorthodox, about leaving the Hasidic community. Over coffee she surmised, ‘It seems what you are actually interested in is what happens when people cross the boundary. You should meet a Hasid.’
She was right. Deborah suggested I place an ad on Craigslist: Seeking Researcher from Hasidic Williamsburg for an Independent Film Project. She suggested that I post it to the ‘strictly platonic’ section. I was stunned. It seemed misleading. She didn’t think so. Why not post it to ‘gigs’? ‘They’re not looking in gigs,’ she replied.
Within 48 hours I had over 40 responses. I pre-screened the most promising by phone, which is how I met ‘Marty.’ We agreed to record our calls for the film, and to keep his identity anonymous. We also agreed never to meet. The resulting film is the development of a rather unexpected relationship over the course of 3 months and hundreds of phone calls. The Rorshachean visuals were designed to create a headspace for listening.
— Annie Berman
