Sacred Spaces: From Temple to Synagogue— a documentary film by Celia Lowenstein about the history, art, and architecture of synagogues — has its New York premiere on Sunday, Oct. 20 at the Chelsea Film Festival.
It has been shown at other film festivals in the U.S. — and is also viewable online on vimeo.
The 90-minute film, produced as part of French Arte TV’s Sacred Monuments series, focuses on the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem and synagogues in seven cities in Europe, North Africa, and North America.
These include: El Ghriba synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia; the synagogues of Cordoba and Toledo, in Spain; the synagogues of the Venice ghetto; the sumptuous Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam; the Dohany St. synagogue in Budapest (the largest in Europe); and the Beth Sholom Synagogue designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Stunning drone footage gives viewers extraordinary close-ups of details of the architecture and artistic decoration of the buildings — inside and out.
Watch the trailer here (the film was shown on European TV earlier this year):
The Chelsea Film Festival described the film as:
Spiritual, meditative, and calming […] a wondrous, informative, and inquisitive documentary that tells the story of the remarkable 3,000-year history of the Jewish Diaspora through their places of worship. The documentary is a profound exploration of how Jewish sacred spaces have figured in the transmission of Jewish values through the ages. If synagogues could speak, they would tell the story embodied in Sacred Spaces – the architectural and spiritual tale of a people’s beliefs, perseverance, and diversity.
Lowenstein introduced the film at the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival on October 13 and after the screening engaged in a conversation about synagogue architecture with the architectural historian Samuel D. Gruber and a Q and A with the audience.
Earlier this year the film was shown at a number of other Jewish film festivals.
Click here to watch the full film on vimeo