''I Am Josh Polonski's Brother'' is

Raphael Nadjari Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composi ...

's second feature film. It was shot in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

in 1999 and early 2000, in

Super 8mm Super 8 mm film is a motion-picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement over the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format. The formal name for Super 8 is 8-mm Type S, distinguishing it from the ...

200 ASA. The film premiered at the

Berlin Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

in the Forum.

Plot

The Polonski brothers, Abe, Ben and Josh, work together in their family's fabric store on the lower east side of Manhattan. Like any other Jewish family they go to their mother's to spend the Sabbath together. But one day, Josh is shot to death in the middle of the street in front of Abe's eyes.. For Ben the tragic situation has an explanation - the nightlife of Josh - but Abe wants to understand what happened. Following the path of his brother, he walks in the same footsteps, finding more and more of himself.

Production and release

Shot in two period, one of 15 days during December 1999 and a few days of retakes in April 2000, in

Super-8 Super 8 mm film is a motion-picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement over the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format. The formal name for Super 8 is 8-mm Type S, distinguishing it from the ...

format and improvised with no script, I Am Josh Polonski's Brother was shot mainly in

Orchard Street Orchard Street is a street in Manhattan which covers the eight city blocks between Division Street in Chinatown and East Houston Street on the Lower East Side. Vehicular traffic runs north on this one-way street. Orchard Street starts fro ...

in New York City, it includes rare footage of Rivington Street's

First Roumanian-American congregation The First Roumanian-American Congregation, also known as Congregation Shaarey Shomayim (), or the Roumanishe Shul (Yiddish for "Romanian synagogue"), was an Orthodox Jewish congregation at 89–93 Rivington Street on the Lower East Side of Manha ...

. The film premiered at the Forum of Young Cinema in the

. The film was then released in France by distributor MK2 and more than 50,000 people came to see it in theaters even though it was shot in

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company, referred to simply as Kodak (), is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in film photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorporated i ...

supported the film to prove that it was possible to create a narrative feature in Super-8 format in the midst of the digital age. Nadjari not only proved it but demonstrated that the digital age, instead of reducing media to its own format, is in fact a great system of expanding the possibilities of most film and video formats. Nadjari's idea is that the digital age is an archiving system that enables any other format to fit, not technically, but more to integrate with the story we want to tell. It is thus possible to use almost any recording device and have it fit to a narrative integration. Here the film was about family and nostalgia for film of the 70's,

film was the best format to fuse the format with its content.

Awards and nominations

(2001) - Forum of Young Cinema

References

External links

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VarietyInterview Richard Edson and Raphael NadjariTrailer
{{Raphaël Nadjari 2000 films English-language French films American independent films Films about Jews and Judaism Films directed by Raphael Nadjari French independent films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films 2000s French films