Israeli director Rama Burshtein's debut film Fill the Void (Lemale et ha'halal) will screen at the Whanganui Film Society on Monday, August 27.
The film was part of the 2013 New Zealand International Film Festival.
It is set in Tel Aviv in an Orthodox Hasidic family and follows 18-year-old Shira's search for a husband after her older sister dies in childbirth, reviewer Jo Randerson said.
"Marriage is a central focus in this community and here the concept of 'a good match' is especially complicated, with a grief-stricken mother who has more than Shira's happiness in mind. Watching Shira negotiate the labyrinth of familial pressure, religious precedent, and her own burgeoning sentiment is both painful and beautiful – there are no easy choices to be made and the viewer travels back and forth with Shira as she struggles to take 'the best path'.
"Writer-director Rama Burshtein investigates the complexities of her own community without judgement: instead we must evaluate for ourselves the strengths and challenges of this closed group and its religious and cultural practices. Ultimately we can only sympathise with characters who are caught, as we all are, between their wishes and desires and the very particular world they find themselves in. What does 'doing what you want' look like when you are bound tightly in a loving familial context, upon which your happiness depends?"
