Thursday, Nov 20, 2025
Sabbath Queen | Talkback with Director Sandi DuBowski
3 PM Film Screening
$10 Students with ID | $13 Seniors | $15 General Admission
Live at The Weitzman
Sandi DuBowski | USA | 2024 | 105 min | NR
English, Hebrew and Yiddish with English Subtitles
Talkback with director 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 bio-dad and the founder of Lab/Shul—an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation. The film documents 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, ceasefire, and an end to the Occupation in Israel/Palestine. The film interrogates what Jewish survival means in a difficult rapidly changing 21st century.
Director’s Bio
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, PBS.
In 2020, he was invited to become a member of 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. 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 Co-Founder of The Creative Resistance, a collective of media makers who create award-winning political ads and design. In the mid-1990’s he began his media and activism work at Planned Parenthood Federation of America focused on the Christian right and the anti-abortion movement.
Day Trippers is Veronica’s fourth feature film and her first picture in English. The film stars Bafta Breakthrough Nell Barlow and Israeli comic Naama Amit.
This event is presented by Philadelphia Jewish Film and Media. Please contact info@phillyjfm.org with any questions.