The Secrets

When Faith Meets Feminism

Naomi (Ania Bukstein), the stubborn heroine of “The Secrets,” a religious soap opera and feminist cri de coeur, is the brilliant, beautiful, headstrong daughter of a revered Orthodox Israeli rabbi (Sefi Rivlin). Exceptionally well schooled in Jewish law, she is the pride and joy of her father to the degree that she has shed no tears over the recent death of her chronically depressed mother. At first, the movie, directed by the Israeli filmmaker Avi Nesher from a screenplay he wrote with Hadar Galron, a London-born feminist playwright, actress and Orthodox Jew, is a sober exploration of limited female opportunities in a rigidly patriarchal environment. »

A young Israeli woman struggles with ambition and tradition

In "The Secrets," filmmaker Avi Nesher takes us into the emotional heart of young Israeli women struggling to mesh their emerging identities with an ultra-orthodox Jewish world where the glass ceiling tops out at marriage and children. For some, it is an easy transition to wife and mother. For others, like Naomi (Ania Bukstein), a brilliant mind who would rather spend her time in study with her rabbi father, it is a struggle. The film, which the Israeli director co-wrote with feminist playwright Hadar Galron, uses the tension between tradition and ambition as the staging ground for an intellectual assault on restrictions imposed on women by orthodox interpretations of religious law. »