by Stephen Saito for The Moveable Fest
Sandi Dubowski had a lead on a potentially fascinating subject for his 2001 documentary “Trembling Before G-d,” finding out as he looked for Hasidic and orthodox Jews in Jerusalem who had to reconcile their religion’s strictures with their sexual orientation.
“Everyone kept saying, “Well, you should talk to the Chief Rabbi of Israel’s nephew who’s gay,” recalls Dubowski, who naturally was intrigued to learn of Amichai Lau-Lavie, who not only was quite publicly out but regularly performed as a drag queen. “I asked Amichai to be in “Trembling” and he refused because he’s too much of a diva – he wanted his own movie and he said, ‘I don’t do collage.’”
Dubowski would have to make his first feature without Lau-Lavie, but there was no way he wasn’t going to keep tabs on him following that introduction. Even then, the filmmaker couldn’t have possibly known what he was signing up for as he devoted himself to following Lau-Lavie’s spiritual journey, requiring over two decades to fully do it justice as he watches him go from commanding stages at nightclubs to holding court at a synagogue of his own in Brooklyn as a rabbi. If Dubowski had previously found tension across the world in many struggling to balance their faith with their sexuality, he finds Lau-Lavie completely comfortable in his own skin as a gay man, yet grappling with a religion that he initially sees as out of touch with the times in other ways as he can be seeing the film’s opening frames presiding over an interfaith marriage.
“Sabbath Queen” chronicles Lau-Lavie’s construction of the Lab/Shul congregation, a pop-up welcoming to all when touting itself as “God optional” and carries the spirit of the shows he put on in drag when the belief in simply giving others a good time can be rejuvenating, but Dubowski sticks around long enough to see the rabbi start to gravitate towards some of the more conservative strains of Judaism and wonders whether the same person that fearlessly ventured into Occupy Wall Street rallies and the Gaza Strip to preach peace will rethink his approach and he has to consider the people who have come to lean on him for spiritual guidance as he charts his own way forward. Having access to every twist and turn in Lau-Lavie’s transformation by virtue of the time he spent with him, Dubowski is able to elicit his soul searching as externally as his bold personality and despite Lau-Lavie’s remarks about collage, finds his life to be a mosaic full of sharp-edged pieces where the flood of memories actually captured by the camera ably expresses the feelings of acceptance and rejection that have shaped his worldview and channel his spirit by bringing in various elements including animation.
After the film premiered earlier this year at Tribeca, “Sabbath Queen” is now starting its theatrical run that Dubowski intends to deliver as an event worthy of all the time he’s already put into it, previously spending years shepherding “Trembling Before G-d” around the world to change hearts and minds one audience at a time. In the midst of traversing between special events in New York and Los Angeles where the film is now playing, the director spoke about when he knew he might have a major story on his hands in filming Lau-Lavie, how to turn thousands of hours of material into a two-hour film and why distribution is as important a part of the filmmaking process and what he’s able to do behind the camera.
