The Light Ahead (Castro)

WEST COAST PREMIERE | NEW 4K DIGITAL RESTORATION 

A classic by B-movie maverick Edgar G. Ulmer (The Black Cat, Detour), THE LIGHT AHEAD  is one of the finest examples of pre-WWII American Yiddish cinema. Shot in Ulmer’s trademark expressionistic visual style and featuring a large ensemble cast from New York’s Artef and Yiddish Art Theatres, the film is a document of a lost era. The film follows Fishke and Hodel, a young disabled couple, as they strive to escape the oppressive disease and poverty of their shtetl. They are aided by Mendele, a local bookseller who harnesses the town’s strong belief in superstition to work in their favor, brokering a black wedding to ward off the shtetl’s cholera epidemic. At once a touching comedic drama and poignant social critique, Ulmer’s film is markedly distinct from Hollywood offerings of the era, and is a prescient allegory for the looming peril facing European Jews on the eve of the Second World War. Restored from original 35mm materials by the National Center for Jewish Film.