Private Project

Summer

Summer is short film about two teenage girls in a Hasidic sleep-a-way camp who, despite their every effort to maintain their purity, explore a forbidden book which leads them to a sexual awakening neither of them are prepared to encounter. Featuring Thea Mccartan, Juliet Brett, and Emmy Tanzy, the film is shot in situ in the heart of Hasidic Upstate New York.

WINNER:
Best Short Film - San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
Best Drama Short - Cinedependent Film Festival
Best LGBTQ Short - Sioux City International Film Festival
Best Screenplay - Sulmona International Film Festival

  • Pearl Gluck
    Director
    Junior (2017), Where Is Joel Baum (2012), Williamsburg (2010), Divan (2004)
  • Pearl Gluck
    Writer
    Divan, Goyta, Where Is Joel Baum, The Turn Out
  • Pearl Gluck
    Producer
    Divan, Williamsburg, Where Is Joel Baum, Boogie, The Turn Out
  • Malky Goldman
    Producer
  • Melissa Weisz
    Producer
  • Juliet Brett
    Key Cast
    Red Oaks, A Most Violent Year, Admission
  • Emmy James
    Key Cast
    Unwanted, Sarah Q
  • Thea McCartan
    Key Cast
    Orange is the New Black, Americana, Blue Bloods
  • Kristan Sprague
    Editor
    Manos Sucias, Newlyweeds, Mulignans, The Turn Out
  • Lisa Gutkin
    Composer
    Klezmatics, Indecent (co-Musical Director)
  • Caroline Sinclair
    Casting Director
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    18 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    January 5, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    25,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English, Yiddish
  • Shooting Format:
    RED
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Arts Kibbutz Artist Residency
    New York
    United States
    September 8, 2016
    Artist Residency for Development
  • New York Jewish Film Festival, Film Society of Lincoln Center
    New York
    United States
    January 21, 2018
    World Premiere
  • Big Apple Film Festival - Women's Filmmaker Showcase
    New York
    United States
    January 20, 2018
  • SAG/AFTRA Short Film Showcase
    New York City
    United States
    March 28, 2018
  • Washington DC Jewish Film Festival
    Washington, DC
    United States
    May 2, 2018
    DC
  • Deep In The Heart Film Festival
    Waco, TX
    United States
    March 24, 2018
    Texas
    Special Jury Prize
  • Moscow Jewish Film Festival
    Moscow
    Russian Federation
    May 22, 2018
    Russian Premiere
  • LGBT Film Festival, Poland
    Warsaw, Poznan, Lodz, Katowice, Wroclaw, Lublin, Gdansk, Krakow
    Poland
    April 27, 2018
    Polish Premiere
  • Out & Loud - Pune International Queer Film Festival
    New York
    United States
    April 6, 2018
    India Premiere
  • Female Eye Film Festival
    Toronto
    Canada
    June 19, 2018
    Canada
  • Berlin Jewish Film Festival
    Berlin
    Germany
    July 5, 2018
    German Premiere
  • OutFestLA
    Los Angeles, CA
    United States
    July 15, 2018
    West Coast Premiere
  • San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
    San Francisco, CA
    United States
    July 24, 2018
    Best Short Film
  • East Village Queer Film Festival
    New York, NY
    United States
    August 20, 2018
  • Kaleidoscope Film Festival
    Chicago, IL
    United States
    August 14, 2018
    Arkansas
  • Cindependent Film Festival
    Cincinnati, OH
    United States
    August 25, 2018
    Ohio
    Best Drama Short
  • Sioux City International Film Festival
    Sioux City, IA
    United States
    September 14, 2018
    Iowa
    Best LGBTQ Short Film
  • Reeling - Chicago LGBT Film Festival
    Chicago, IL
    United States
    September 21, 2018
    Chicago
  • NewFest NYC
    New York
    United States
    October 27, 2018
  • Yonkers International Film Festival
    Yonkers, NY
    United States
    November 10, 2018
  • Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival
    Philadelphia
    United States
    November 11, 2018
  • Sulmona International Film Festival
    Sulmona
    Italy
    November 10, 2018
    Italy Premiere
    Best Screenplay
Director Biography - Pearl Gluck

Pearl Gluck was awarded a 2000 Sundance Producer's Lab fellowship and a 2001 Sundance Festival mentorship for Divan (2004), her first documentary film. "Summer" has been nominated and won awards at various festivals including Best Short at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and a Special Jury Award at the Deep in the Heart Film Festival. "The Turn Out" (2018) is her first hybrid feature film and won the Best Debut Feature award at the 16th annual Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto. Divan (2004) was broadcast on the Sundance Channel, theatrically premiered at the Film Forum in New York and played at festivals around the world. Her short film, Where Is Joel Baum (2012), starring Lynn Cohen won various awards at festivals including Best Film at The Female Eye film festival and Best Actor for Luzer Twersky at the Starz Denver Film Festival. Her short film, Junior (2017) addresses racially motivated police violence. Her feature, The Turn Out, explores domestic sex trafficking at truckstops. Her first short film that she co-wrote, Goyta (2007), premiered at Cannes, and she co-directed and co-produced the award-winning short, Great Balls of Fire (2001) which screened at Transmediale, Oberhausen, European Media Arts Festival, Ocularis, the New York Video Festival at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the DIG.IT Festival at the Walker Center for the Arts. In 1996 she received a Fulbright grant to Hungary to collect Hasidic stories. Gluck has been interviewed about her work on NPR with Melissa Block, WBUR's The Connection with Chris Leiden in Boston and produced for WBAI. She has appeared in A Life Apart: Hasidism in America (1998; Directed and Produced by Oren Rudavsky and Menachem Daum). Pearl teaches screenwriting and directing at Penn State University.

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Director Statement

Summer is short film about two teenage girls in a Hasidic sleep-a-way camp who, despite their every effort to maintain their purity, explore a forbidden book which leads them to a sexual awakening neither of them are prepared to encounter. Featuring Thea Mccartan, Juliet Brett, and Emmy James, the film is shot in situ in the heart of Hasidic Upstate New York. In terms of the writing and directing, I, too, attended an all-girls Hasidic summer camps in the Catskills. I was brought up Hasidic, and when I was in high school, I was the one who found the science books before the principal ripped out the chapters on Reproduction and Evolution. What I saw astounded me and I snuck into the library to uncover more of the censored world: I studied Our Bodies Ourselves like it was one of the five books of Torah without anyone discovering my secret self-awareness and sexual awakening. This is precisely why I was driven to see what may happen if I put the same book into the hands of two teenage girls in a summer camp. Sexual exploration, curiosity, experimentation and self-expression are traditionally marginalized especially for girls in the religious world of my youth. Despite blatant repression or subtle encouragements toward a chaste and non-sexual adolescence, it is inevitable that young women will grapple with the overwhelming and natural desire to explore themselves. How – and if – they break through those barriers interests me.