Sukkah City

Movie Information

In Brief: The Asheville Jewish Film Festival's second offering this year is another documentary. This one is Jason Hutt's Sukkah City — a film about an architectural competition devoted to coming up with new designs for building a sukkah (a traditional temporary structure used during the festival of Sukkot). The idea is intriguing, and the designs range from the fanciful to the downright gimmicky to the socially conscious.
Score:

Genre: Documentary
Director: Jason Hutt
Starring:
Rated: NR

sukkahcity

If you don’t know what a sukkah is, don’t feel too bad. Neither did I. I’ve been around Jewish people all my life, had and have Jewish friends, even lived with a Jew for about a year, but the topic of the sukkah just never came up. A sukkah is a kind of hut — a temporary structure used during the festival of Sukkot that is meant to symbolize when God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness after they were freed from Egypt. The idea, which is subject to conditions, is to essentially live in the sukkah for seven days. Though there are certain rules about what a sukkah must have — three walls, a roof made of organic material thick enough to provide shade but thin enough to see the stars, etc. — there are no specifics as concerns what it should look like. This was the impetus behind the architectural competition of Sukkah City, culminating in a display of the 12 winning entries in New York City’s UnionSquarePark in September of 2010.

sukkah

The winning designs are indeed pretty fanciful — one so much so that it was too fragile to survive installation. The most interesting perhaps is the one made of (or covered with) signs purchased from homeless people, something that is also symbolically relevant considering what is being commemorated. Easily the least practical, and, to my mind, downright gimmicky, is one made of glass walls topped by a giant log. But all are interesting. The film itself is good but not all that creative. It’s essentially a fairly straightforward record of the event, and it sometimes doesn’t really capture the finished designs all that well. Even so, it’s a worthy work and worth a look.

The Asheville Jewish Film Festival and Fine Arts Theatre will screen Sukkah City April 10 at 7 p.m. with an encore showing on Friday, April 11 at 1 p.m. Admission is $8.50.

SHARE
About Ken Hanke
Head film critic for Mountain Xpress from December 2000 until his death in June 2016. Author of books "Ken Russell's Films," "Charlie Chan at the Movies," "A Critical Guide to Horror Film Series," "Tim Burton: An Unauthorized Biography of the Filmmaker."

Before you comment

The comments section is here to provide a platform for civil dialogue on the issues we face together as a local community. Xpress is committed to offering this platform for all voices, but when the tone of the discussion gets nasty or strays off topic, we believe many people choose not to participate. Xpress editors are determined to moderate comments to ensure a constructive interchange is maintained. All comments judged not to be in keeping with the spirit of civil discourse will be removed and repeat violators will be banned. See here for our terms of service. Thank you for being part of this effort to promote respectful discussion.

Leave a Reply

To leave a reply you may Login with your Mountain Xpress account, connect socially or enter your name and e-mail. Your e-mail address will not be published. All fields are required.