How to Make Challah

dir. Sarah Rosen

Documentary
12 min
2023
New York

In 1975, my aunt Jane propped up a video camera in her 97-year-old immigrant grandmother’s Upper West Side kitchen to capture her baking challah. Nearly fifty years later, I filmed Jane, now 80, attempting the same ritual for the first time.

How to Make Challah mixes the 1975 tape, the 2022 footage, and glimpses of early Jewish life in New York, jumping from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire to the eternal appeal of Loehmann’s, from family gossip to feminist awakenings. Playful, wry, and messy, the film’s more about the people than the bread.

As the film documents three generations of women performing this ritual a half century apart, it highlights the age-old significance of conversation between women in the kitchen. It shows how much a day of baking bread can reveal about class, culture, family, history, and the Jewish story in America. Most of all, the film is about what we pass on to the next generation and what we leave behind.

Directed and Produced by: Sarah Rosen
Edited by: Matt Shapiro

Cinematography by: Emilija Gasic
Music by: Noah Fishman
Animation by: Shayna Strype

Festivals (selected):

  • New York Jewish Film Festival, presented by The Jewish Museum and Film at Lincoln Center - World Premiere

  • Rooftop Films

  • Boston Jewish Film Festival - WINNER OF SHORT FILM COMPETITION

  • Philadelphia Jewish Film and Media Festival - WINNER OF AUDIENCE AWARD FOR BEST SHORT

  • Moscow Jewish Film Festival - WINNER OF JURY AWARD

  • Cleveland International Film Festival

  • Budapest Jewish-Israeli Film Festival - Budapesti Zsidó és Izraeli Filmfesztivál

  • Toronto Jewish Film Festival

  • UK Jewish Film Festival

  • Berlin Brandenburg Jewish Film Festival

  • Twin Cities Jewish Film Festival

  • San Diego International Jewish Film Festival

Educational screenings:

  • Lehrhaus - House of Learning (Boston)

  • JTS MFA in Creative Writing class, co-presented with Etgar Keret’s feature film Jellyfish (New York)

  • Yeshiva University writing class (New York)

Want to screen the film? Check out the screening guide.

(Film stills courtesy of Sarah Rosen)