The Jewish Soul: Classics of Yiddish Cinema - Mir Kumen On (Children Must Laugh)

Polish-made window into a little socialist paradise: a rural tuberculosis sanatorium set up by Jewish workers’ organizations for poor city kids, run democratically by the young patients themselves.

Too often segregated within an academic and cultural niche, Yiddish cinema is in fact a varied and vibrant genre ripe for reappraisal. Whether shot in the fields of Poland or makeshift studios in Manhattan, Yidishe Kino endure not only as precious documents of a vanishing culture, but a fascinating genre unto itself, with its unique blend of schmaltz and shtick, a dash of operetta, often overlaid with brooding atmosphere. Restored by Lobster Films, Paris, presented by Kino Lorber, this film showcases careful new translations by Yiddish cultural historian Allen Lewis Rickman, which preserve the clever wordplay and conveys the fluidity of the multi-lingual dialogue.