In this, Poland's last Yiddish feature film, comedy duo Dzigan and Shumacher play all the parts in a Sholem Aleichem story staged for an audience of children who survived the Holocaust.
This semi-documentary film (and Poland's last Yiddish feature) features the comedy duo Szymon Dzigan and Israel Shumacher who had recently returned from the Soviet Union, and Jewish children who had survived the Holocaust. Directed on location at at the JDC-supported Helenowek Colony, an orphanage/school near Lodz, this film includes Dzigan and Shumacher's virtuoso turn as all the characters in Sholem Aleichem's Kasrilevke Brent (Kasrilevke is Burning), and an exchange of roles where they become the children's audience. Reversals continue during the performers' visit to the children's residence, as the children teach adults about the healing possibilities of music, dance and storytelling.—National Center for Jewish Film