After a successful Seed&Spark campaign where we raised over 20k for production, we're back...this time for post!

In order to meet our goals of finishing the film by late summer/early fall 2026, we need to raise an additional $6250 for post production! This means the edit, color, score, and most importantly, sound mixing & editing.

SHEIGETZ stars Gera Sandler (UNORTHODOX), and features music from NYC Punk Band 95Bulls with an original score by Jack Tobias of YHWH Nailgun

THE STORY

Set in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of Williamsburg, SHEIGETZ tells the story of Yoni, a rebellious, punk-obsessed 12 year old. Yoni is rude, obnoxious, sarcastic - the type of preteen we've all come to know and love.

What he treasures the most is his older brother Arieh's collection of punk music, who passed away when Yoni was young.

On the 5th year anniversary of Arieh's passing (Yarzheit), Yoni sneaks out to see his brother’s favorite band, a punk group called TZEITEL'S REVENGE playing at a venue in Bushwick called THE WET SPOT.

What begins as the best night of his life quickly becomes the worst as Yoni learns a painful truth: the band’s charismatic frontman, Lou Rollins, is none other than Arieh...

Arieh's “death” was a lie, a cover-up to conceal the shame of his departure from the community, one which his own father and community were complicit in creating.

This shocking revelation completely upends everything Yoni thought to be true - about his father - about his community - about this religion, and about the impossible choices one makes living in these incredibly insular communities.

The film ends in an emotionally honest, hopeful place, with Yoni realizing he doesn't belong in either the punk or orthodox world, desperately needing his father to meet him half way...

THE WHY

Growing up Jewish in Brooklyn, I was endlessly curious about the Hasidic families I passed in Williamsburg and Crown Heights. Their world felt so different from my own: secular, assimilated, modern, and yet I could never shake a quieter thought: that could have been me. My grandparents chose a different life when they came to America. In another version of events, I might have been one of those kids walking down Division Avenue.

As a filmmaker, I knew I wanted to explore the ultra-Orthodox world on screen. Stories about those who leave, the so-called “OTD” (off the derech) narratives, have become their own genre: the ostracism, the culture shock, the addiction, the grief. I have enormous respect for those stories. But I didn’t want to tell another one.

I wanted to explore the people who stay, not out of zealotry, but because, as one former Hasidic person told me plainly, “change is scary.” That quieter, more complicated truth felt like the more unexplored territory.

The seed of SHEIGETZ came during the pandemic. I was walking in Prospect Park in Brooklyn when I saw a Hasidic father holding hands with his young son. The image immediately recalled the final scene of BICYCLE THIEVES, that wordless, aching moment of a boy looking up at his father. And I thought: What if that boy had an older brother? What if that brother had gone OTD, and the family had told the boy he was dead?

The punk element came next, rooted in something personal. I thought about my own childhood, and the way I idolized an older camp counselor who introduced me to music that felt like a secret, Radiohead, Weezer, a whole world I didn’t know existed. That became the emotional blueprint: a kid who worships an older brother through his record collection, not knowing the brother is still alive.

POST PRODUCTION BUDGET BREAKDOWN

SOUND MIX/EDIT ~ $2500

EDITOR ~ $2000

FESTIVAL FEES/SCREENINGS/DISTRIBUTION ~$1000

COMPOSER ~ $1000

COLORIST ~$750