Unraveled

On the verge of his Bar Mitzvah, Simon’s recurring nightmares about dropping the Torah threaten to derail his big day.

  • Yale Fried
    Director
  • Yale Fried
    Writer
  • Isaak Popkin
    Producer
  • Liv Boren
    Producer
  • Chris Dooly
    Producer
  • Yale Fried
    Producer
  • Zin Kassel
    Key Cast
    "Simon"
  • Joel Widman
    Key Cast
    "Dad"
  • Bern Cohen
    Key Cast
    "Rabbi Rosenfeld"
  • Karen Fried
    Key Cast
    "Mom"
  • Chris Dooly
    Key Cast
    "Tommy"
  • Christopher Salerno
    Editor
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Coming of Age, Jewish
  • Runtime:
    14 minutes 11 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 1, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    45,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digitial
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Yale Fried

Yale Fried is a Pennsylvania based filmmaker who creates viral content for politicians, celebrities and brands like Crooked Media, Lionsgate, American Idol, GQ, Vanity Fair, and Google.

While the films he writes and directs tend to receive less than the billions of views his clients have received, he still likes them quite a bit. An Emerson college grad, Yale spends his free time crawling on the floor with his infant son, reading novels, and screaming from the couch as the Buffalo Bills play football.

A Buffalo, New York native, Yale now lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his wife, son, parents, grandfather, two siblings, two dogs, and an army of deer.

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Director Statement

Long before I ever wanted to be a filmmaker, I wanted to be a Rabbi. After all, Rabbis told stories and I thought I might like to do that. That dream never did come to fruition, but while studying film at Emerson college, I began working as a Hebrew School teacher at a local synagogue where I tutored Bar Mitzvah students and ushered them through the sometimes exciting, sometimes traumatizing experience of becoming a Jewish adult.

During my own Bar Mitzvah, I was full of anxiety and I saw those same experiences reflected in my students. Fears of disappointing their families, embarrassing themselves publicly, and the very real fear of dropping the Torah and the ominous consequences of it.

In making Unraveled I wanted to capture that sense of fear and nostalgia from my own Bar Mitzvah years. Visually, we dressed our Bar Mitzvah boy in thrift store relics of the mid 2000s and filmed through mist and servo zooms to evoke an earlier time where you sat in the backseat of the car and worried about nothing more than humiliating yourself in front of everyone you know and disappointing your parents.

But Unraveled not only tells the stories of these fears, it also mocks them. I am a father now to an incredible baby boy who is somehow closer to his Bar Mitzvah than I am to mine. The thought of him worrying over all of these little things makes me laugh and also fills me with an overwhelming sense of comfort. When you’re in it, the anxiety is suffocating. But looking in from the outside, the tradition is nothing short of beautiful. It’s a rite of passage, a hazing ritual. Call it father-son-bonding.