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Situating archival film in parallel with reenactment, the film asks, how does everyday entertainment bring people together and act as a catalyst for social change? Set in New York’s Lower East Side in the early years of the twentieth century, it centers on a real storefront cinema, Frank Seiden’s Variety Theater. Here silent movies were anything but. Frank and his sons improvised dialog for the films and sang Yiddish ballads to an audience that didn’t hesitate to join in or argue back. It was a welcoming space for women, and the film follows a group of radical young garment workers who gather here to figure out how to fight for women’s rights and change their world. (Zoe Beloff, USA, 2026, 50 min.)About the book:
This book is a companion to the film. It includes both my art work and historical documents. It brings together multiple perspectives: oral histories from the Lower East Side, an essay, Intellectuals between Critique and Power by the historian Enzo Traverso, about the transformation of Jewish thinkers from the radical left wing intellectuals of the first half of the 20th century to the conservative power brokers of today. It ends with my notes on Walter Benjamin’s concept of the Angel of History in our time of multiple catastrophes. The text poses questions and offers a few signposts. How does history grow out of and weight upon live experience? How can people without power or influence change their world? How can we reach out to comrades across time?
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