Minyan

Panorama 2020

For a Jewish prayer community or “minyan” to be able to hold a service, it must consist of at least ten practising Jews. David, who was born into a Russian immigrant family, is 17 years old and regularly helps out at minyans in Brighton Beach, a district of New York that is characterised by Jewish life. His father, a former boxing coach, his mother and his beloved grandfather all take this for granted. But David, who is just starting to tentatively explore life in the East Village gay scene, gradually begins to question the strict rules of his community and makes friends with two elderly gay Jews. At the same time, David’s sexual awakening cannot help but be affected by the emergence of HIV and AIDS.
Director Eric Steel sets his sensitive portrait of a gay Jewish youth in the as yet un-gentrified, roughshod New York of the 1980s. In his feature-film debut, he depicts unobtrusively and with quiet humour how one young man squares social attributions – immigrant, Jew, homosexual – with his own feelings and learns to define them anew.

by Eric Steel
with Samuel H. Levine, Ron Rifkin, Christopher McCann, Mark Margolis, Richard Topol, Brooke Bloom, Alex Hurt USA 2020 English, Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian 118’ Colour World premiere

With

Samuel H. Levine (David)
Ron Rifkin (Josef)
Christopher McCann (Herschel)
Mark Margolis (Itzik)
Richard Topol (Zalman)
Brooke Bloom (Rachel)
Alex Hurt (Bruno)

Crew

Director	Eric Steel
Screenplay	Daniel Pearle, Eric Steel based on the short story by David Bezmozgis
Cinematography	Ole Bratt Birkeland
Editing	Ray Hubley
Music	David Krakauer, Kathleen Tagg
Sound Design	Tony Volante
Sound	Alistair Farrant
Production Design	Lucio Seixas
Costumes	Annie Simon
Make-Up	Rashida Bolden
Assistant Director	Laura Klein
Casting	Susan Shopmaker
Production Manager	Brian Miller
Producers	Luca Borghese, Ben Howe, Eric Steel, Luigi Caiola
Executive Producers	Anne Carey, Johnny Holland

Produced by

AgX

https://www.agx-film.com/ https://www.agx-film.com/

Easy There Tiger

Photos

Eric Steel

Born in 1964, he lives in New York City, USA. He studied art history at Yale University and began his film career with Walt Disney Pictures in California. He then moved to the production company Cinecom in New York before working for several years at Scott Rudin Productions where he developed films including Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead, Alan Parker’s Angela’s Ashes and Stephen Daldry’s The Hours. After making two documentaries, Minyan is his debut feature film as a director.

Filmography

2006 The Bridge; documentary 2013 Kiss the Water; documentary 2020 Minyan; Panorama

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2020