“Awe inspiring. Enthralling. One of the best films I've seen this year. Sabbath Queen is a rich and intimate portrait.”
— Robyn Bahr,
“Sabbath Queen shrewdly asks hard questions about what it means to be Jewish in the 21st centuty.”
— Ryan Lattanzio,
“I laughed and cried, I deepened and expanded, and you will too. Lau-Lavie’s wisdom and capacity for connection are deep. Again and again he invites us to reach across boundaries—queer and not, Jewish and not, Jews/Israelis and Palestinians…DuBowski’s film captures Lau-Lavie’s yin-yang genius at both standing in that messy middle and in inspiring others to do so as well.”
— Eli Andrew Ramer,
ABOUT THE FILM
LOGLINE
Twenty-one years in the making, Sabbath Queen follows Amichai Lau-Lavie’s journey from radical drag queen to influential Rabbi of a God-optional, artist-driven New York synagogue.
LONG SYNOPSIS
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 bio-dad, 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.
Director Sandi DuBowski
Writers Francisco Bello, Sandi DuBowski, Jeremy Stulberg
Producer Sandi DuBowski
Executive Producers Adrian Salpeter, Darren Aronofsky, Jen Chaiken, Michael Dorf and Sarah Connors, S. Asher Gelman, Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman, Jess Jacobs, Jewish Story Partners, Audrey Rosenberg, Jeffrey Solomon & Audrey Weiner
Co-Executive Producer Matt Nosanchuk
Co-Producers Ben Lowy, Simon Mendes
Contributing Producers Jeannie Blaustein, Carla Solomon, Jeff Schoenfeld
Editors Francisco Bello, ACE, Kyle Crichton, Philip Shane, Jeremy Stulberg
Cinematographers Dan Gold, Wolfgang Held, Nadia Hallgren, Kirsten Johnson, Laela Kilbourn, Dror Lebendiger, Sandi DuBowski
Composer Joel Goodman
FESTIVALS
2024: Tribeca (World Premiere)
AVAILABLE TERRITORIES
The World
EXHIBITION FORMATS
DCP, Digital Download
PRESS KIT
Download Press Kit
AVAILABLE PRESS IMAGES (click to preview)
DOWNLOAD IMAGES
Higher Resolution Images Currently Not Available