The Man Without a World (1991)

The Man Without a World is credited to the legendary and imaginary 1920s Soviet director Yevgeny Antinov But the film is anything but old In fact Antinov himself is the creation of contemporary filmmaker Eleanor Antin Her film is a moving comic melodrama set in a typical shtetl village in Poland The Jews struggle against poverty and racial hatred is complicated by their own division into hostile political factions of the religious orthodoxy assimilationists socialists Zionists anarchists and survivors While the Jews of the shtetl pursue their loves politics religion business and dreams for the future the Angel of Death is ever near