[Soft music.]
And action!
It's huge.
It's mind blowing.
I have to keep reminding myself that they're not real.
It's like a historical movie, actually, what we are doing here.
This is 90 percent of my filming experience, here?
Is like this.
Come over here to do a show set in Williamsburg,
to do it in Berlin, it kind of, you know, plays with my head.
A series in Yiddish, for me also, personally, I think it's a great thing.
Going to be dealing with a language that no one understands.
I mean, we're dealing with costumes and rituals no one understands.
But the essence of what's happening, that's universally understood.
This very beautiful and unique story
that shows kind of like, both worlds.
I don't think it's a story about the existence of God, or something.
It's more about...the right to have your voice.
And people like me never really had that opportunity.
We never saw ourselves reflected back in the stories being told
in popular culture.
So we didn't really know how to create our own stories.
I think this is the first show, ever, to accurately portray
the Hasidic community.
These are real people, and their experiences are very universal,
and very relatable.
When the community watching it, and there is somebody like me,
watches it, and sees, this girl lived exactly like she lives.
And, she was able to muster the courage to follow her dreams.
Maybe this girl can, too.
When I met Ann and Alexa, and I became friends with them,
I realized, if anybody is ever going to really be able to grasp
what the story is about,
and to really execute it in a way
that is going to have a positive cultural impact,
it's these women.
After I met Deborah, I read her book,
and I thought it was amazing.
I mean, I read it in one sitting. I couldn't put it down.
And then, she said:
"Well, why don't you make my book into a TV show?"
Anna and I wanted to make a show for a while,
in which we could work through a lot of the topics
we discuss a lot, especially about being Jewish in Germany.
To me, the story is about a young woman, who
is searching for herself,
and she is searching for her community in the world.
Esther is a 19 year old girl.
She was born and raised in Williamsburg, Brooklyn,
in the community called Satmar.
- Don't forget, Esty. He speaks first.
She grows up in a very religious neighborhood.
And, frees herself from an unhappy arranged marriage,
and flees to Berlin.
Her story is unique, and romantic.
We just felt it was so different, that somebody would leave
this very insular community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York,
and find their way here, out of choice.
From a very young age, she always felt very different.
She's always been told that she is very different,
because of the fact that she always has questions within her,
and she has that 'chutzpah,' you can say.
The Satmar Jews are a Hasidic community,
originally from the town of Satu Mare, in Hungary.
They are mostly descendants of Holocaust survivors, and
started by Holocaust survivors, in New York, after the war.
This kind of makes them a little bit different
than a lot of other Hasidic communities,
because they really developed what they were about, after the war,
and not before.
It is founded by people who are struggling
with the most immense trauma we can imagine.
For the first generation,
I would say even for the first two generations,
this trauma was a very driving force
behind the ideological structures of this community.
The Satmar community is also special, in that Yiddish is their native language.
I think they can be credited, to some degree,
with keeping Yiddish alive.
- But why Berlin? - Think about it.
- What? - Her crazy mama lives in Berlin!
It was very important to us, to make changes in the present-day story,
from Deborah Feldman's real life.
Because she is a young woman, she is a public figure,
she is a public intellectual, and we wanted Esther's
Berlin life to be very different from real Deborah's Berlin life.
So, in a sense, the flashbacks are based on the book,
but the present-day story is entirely made up.
You have to go beyond cliché,
beyond our projection onto what the life might be
in a community like this.
It was very important to us to get not just the look and feel
and costumes, and rituals, and everything correct, but
to inhabit the ideas of these characters' worlds,
in a way that felt authentic,
but also heightened, because it's television.
I just, in general, feel like, when you're showing
different communities, especially communities on the margins,
you want to get the details right.
We knew it was so important to get people on board,
not just as actors, but behind and in front of the camera,
who are from this community.
So one of the first people we hired was Eli Rosen,
who is an actor, translator, and kind of specialist,
when it comes to Yiddish.
Eli Rosen was like our guide.
He was our spirit guide.
He not only translated the scripts,
he coached the actors in Yiddish,
he helped us with all the cultural details,
and he played the rabbi.
When I was given the opportunity to help ensure
that it was representative, and that it is authentic,
um...I, uh...
jumped at it.
Directing the scenes which are set within or
in the ultra-Orthodox world,
I would have been lost, without this advice.
We had two research trips to New York,
with our entire team, to not just watch and look,
and touch everything we saw, but we got access
to meeting people who are still in this community.
We really tried to offer our heads of department, as much access.
These trips, of course, are like a hunt, for impressions,
for feeling atmosphere,
for just watching, just taking things in.
It was a kind of image-based research.
We looked around. We took so many pictures.
And we tried to inhale this world
by the visual impressions we got.
While we were taken around New York,
we went on a tour of Williamsburg, by an ex-Satmar woman,
who had grown up there, she had her first child there,
and had been married, and everything.
She walked us through a lot of Williamsburg,
and the traditions within the exterior buildings.
Silke was taking lots of notes for her world,
and I was taking lots of notes
for the characters that I was going to be building.
We started shooting the past, like the Williamsburg parts,
and then, we moved to Berlin.
So, suddenly, something felt different.
Also, it's moving from Yiddish to English, and different outfits and makeup.
Suddenly, the hair -- and there was so many different hairs, right?
There is bald, and there is this, and there is the wig, and --
Esty has so many faces.
I had spoken to Deborah Feldman, before we started the project,
about her personal experience of transitioning
from Satmar modesty clothing, to Western clothing.
She said it took her a long time, and it was a slow process,
and she pushed herself to experience
wearing T shirts, and showing her arm,
and showing more flesh.
She said it did take a long time.
So, I wanted to show that.
I wanted to reflect Deborah's experience, with Esther.
It was so hard to create, in a way,
a production that is much like a period film,
that plays in the world of today.
To create the costumes for that was a very big challenge.
Much like the sets that played in two worlds,
we had costumes that played in two worlds.
Plus, a character who has an arc,
not just in her character, but in her looks, and in her clothes.
Our production designer knew which exterior locations
we were going to be using there,
and built, made to measure, the sets here,
to sync with those exteriors.
We have complicated locations, because we shot
most of the New York part, here in Berlin.
- Why Germany?
The other movies that I did before,
we came through the windows,
and now, we do everything inside.
So, maybe, this is a very first experience, for me. Yeah.
Wolfgang is an incredible cinematographer.
He has shot some of the most incredible documentaries.
He is able to work with natural light.
He is able to work spontaneously.
We joke that he is like the hand held steadicam.
He is good at combining different kinds of light,
which, because we were matching set interiors with real exteriors,
the lighting was very delicate,
and Wolfgang was incredible at that.
When I watch material in post production,
I think it is very difficult
to see what was inside, and what was outside,
what was in New York, and what was shot in Berlin.
- She's not here?
Shira Haas is a talent. What a face.
I mean, she only needs to move a part of her face,
and can make you cry, or laugh.
Shira is just an enormous, enormous actress.
So talented. So gifted. Such a hard worker.
It was pure joy.
Every day, it was pure joy, to work with Shira.
I think that what is really beautiful in Esty,
I think that she really really really,
even though she has been told all her life that she is different,
even though she feels like she is different,
she always tries very, very hard to fit in. Really.
And, she really wants to find that feeling of belonging and happiness.
We have, sort of, four main characters.
I mean, Esther is the main character,
but the other main characters are all Satmar characters,
who are dealing with being inside and outside at the same time.
The thing is, she was kicked out, or left the community 15 years before.
It is that role, that attracted me, really, to the whole thing.
With Amit Rahav, we had never seen him act in another project.
We just saw him in the audition.
We were all just blown away by him, as well.
He just kills it, in every scene. He is a natural talent.
I think that he is just very naive, and innocent.
It's not weakness.
He has one truth, and this is the one truth he knows.
- It's around here somewhere.
- There it is!
- In this section. Next to the fallen tree!
With Jeff Wilbusch, a crazy thing happened.
Our German casting director, said:
"Oh, we have this German actor, who speaks Yiddish."
It was the end of the day, and Alexa and I were really tired,
and we were sitting here in the office.
So, this guy comes in, and we were like:
"Yeah, so this is what the show is about," and everything.
He was like: "This is my story."
And we were like: "I'm sorry?"
And he was like:
"I am from the Satmar community.
Yiddish is my native language. This is my story."
I think Moishe is a tragic role.
He has a lot of issues.
Personal issues, that he needs to fight.
He is hunted.
And he is also a hunter.
So, he comes to bring Esther back.
- Say it. Where is Esty?
- Where is Esty, telephone?
- You're crazy, Yanky.
[Aerosol spritzes.]
For us, the challenges of creating this Satmar wedding,
here in Berlin, began with finding enough extras,
who had big enough beards,
and were willing to get all the hair and makeup.
The joke on this show is that the men required
way more hair and makeup than the women.
- Mine is grown now. I wasn't allowed to cut it.
It's a very complex cultural ritual.
We wanted to get it right. There are a lot of details.
I'm just placing everybody in sort of gender and age order,
as well as imaginary relationship to the bride and groom.
So, there is kind of a system to it.
It's incredible pageantry.
It's a moment of great joy for the family.
But, they don't necessarily express their joy,
the way other communities express it.
I paid for everything.
So really, everything has to work out.
I check everyone's behavior.
I am having fun, but not too much.
It was very important for us,
to strike the right tone with the wedding.
Then, also, we had a hundred extras.
Costumes.
Well, the first challenge, and the biggest challenge,
was to shoot it all within two days. [Laughs]
For us, it was our big Hollywood moment.
It was very hot when we were shooting.
Unfortunately,
for all of the extras, and actors,
they were wearing a lot of costume,
and makeup, and hair,
in 100 degree Farhenheit weather.
- Every day on set, it's like this. Normal.
- That's what I'm used to. - He's the king.
It's hot in there.
It's too hot. Please, don't send me in there, again.
We had an incredibly talented costume designer, Justine Seymour.
She has worked all over the world.
She is incredibly flexible.
It was challenging, because some of the actual clothing
is not for sale here, so some things were sourced in Williamsburg.
They wear these furry hats called shtreimels.
We couldn't afford them. They cost more than 1000 Euro each.
Each hat involves the fur of six minks,
which seemed unnecessary to us. We needed a lot of them.
So, a theater company in Hamburg made them out of fake fur.
So, no minks were harmed in the making of this TV show.
Right now, I am spraying and stroking the shtreimel,
in order to make the fur flat, and look more realistic and shiny.
We have had to fit them, to make them work,
for every individual actor, yes. Even all of the extras.
There is a tent, over there, full of shtreimels.
We call it our shtreimel tent.
Our head of hair and makeup department, Jens,
managed to create our peyots, in a way that I've never seen on screen.
One hundred percent the best peyots I've seen.
It's quite interesting.
Yesterday, we were laughing very much.
When we had 150 Hasids outside, it was a very funny picture.
Someone was saying: "Look! The Jews are back in Berlin."
[Music.]
We always talk about trying to portray reality in film.
There is no more reality than diversity.
That's -- just walk across the street.
So, for Berlin, we really wanted
to create a very colorful lightness,
to the architecture we chose.
We kind of returned to West Berlin.
Kind of little locations and areas, and certain type of architecture,
that, um, were built in the 1970s and 1980s.
I wanted to have something more with a freer space.
More rhythm in it.
Silke found a most incredible location, right next to the Philharmonic.
No one had ever shot there, and it was the perfect location.
It was for the music academy, it was built in the 1960s.
It was supposed to be a much lighter, open architecture,
post-war. It was about communication.
It was about low hierarchy.
Um, mirrored by architecture.
We created our own music academy, where
Jews and Muslims are playing music together.
It's also this crazy, post-colonial paradox.
Like, why are people from the Middle East
playing German music, at all?
It has this crazy bringing together of unexpected worlds.
That gets to the spirit of the show, on every level.
The concept of this music academy is that different talented musicians
from all over the world come together, to practice their specific instruments.
[Instrumental music.]
Television is aspirational.
We like the idea of showing a version of Berlin
that was full of music,
that merged music from the past, with young people from the future,
against this amazing backdrop.
There is a kind of doubling back on history
in this show.
We have a Jewish character.
In order to escape the confines of her own life,
she returns to the source of her community's trauma.
- Do you see that villa?
- The conference, where the Nazis decided to kill the Jews,
- in concentration camps, took place in 1942 in that villa.
- And you swim in this lake?
- A lake is just a lake.
Of course, seeing her being confronted
with our world,
it makes us question our world, too.
Shooting a series in Yiddish, um, in Berlin,
which has, ironically, become a kind of new diaspora,
in the sense that you have all these young Israeli Jews,
all these young American Jews, coming back to Berlin,
this is a movement. This is not the story of one person.
Um, it just fit. It made sense,
that this is the place where we would rediscover this language,
outside of a religious context.
So there will be art in Yiddish.
There is theater in Yiddish, so.
But like, a real, Netflix series, in Yiddish?
This is something amazing.
You know, Berlin really wears its trauma on its sleeve.
It's what makes the city so raw, and interesting.
Esty coming here, um, she does the same in the city.
She adds to those layers.
That was really important for us: to close that circle,
as we say in German.
[Soft instrumental music.]