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Sabbath Queen

Director

Sandi DuBowski

Executive Producers

Adrian Salpeter, Darren Aronofsky, Jen Chaiken, S. Asher Gelman, Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman, Jess Jacobs, Jewish Story Partners, Audrey Rosenberg, Jeffrey Solomon, Audrey Weiner

Producer

Sandi DuBowski

Editors

Francisco Bello, Kyle Crichton, Philip Shane, Jeremy Stulberg

Cinematographers

Dan Gold, Wolfgang Held, Nadia Hallgren, Kirsten Johnson, Laela Kilbourn, Dror Lebendiger, Sandi DuBowski

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 father, 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.

Post-screening discussion with director Sandi DuBowski, co-executive producer Matthew Nosanchuk, and film participant Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, moderated by Nell Minow, Contributing Editor and Critic, rogerebert.com.

Director, Sabbath Queen

Sandi DuBowski is the Director/Producer of Sabbath Queen, Director/Producer of Trembling Before G-D, Producer of A Jihad For Love, and Co-Producer of Budrus. His award-winning work has screened at Sundance, Berlin, Tribeca, and Toronto, theatrically released in 150 cities, and broadcast on ZDF/Arte, BBC, Channel 4, and PBS. In 2020, he was invited to join the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. DuBowski spearheaded a groundbreaking impact campaign with the award-winning Trembling Before G-D, personally conducting 850 live events for over 250,000 people, which changed the lives of countless individuals, their families, religious leaders, and communities around the world. Feature stories on the project appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NPR, The Globe and Mail, and BBC News. From 2009-2016, DuBowski worked with over 125 of the world’s best social justice documentaries as the Outreach Director of Doc Society’s Good Pitch. He is a Co-Founder of The Creative Resistance, a collective of media makers who create award-winning political ads and design. In the mid-1990s, he began his media and activism work at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, focused on the Christian right and the anti-abortion movement.