As part of Norwich History Festival 2026, there will be a special post-screening Q&A with Dr Julia Wagner, chaired by Dr Sarah Godfrey, Associate Professor, School of Media, Language and Communication Studies (UEA).
Julia is a lecturer and writer specialising in Jewish-interest film and television, and Italian cinema. She holds a PhD in Film Studies and is author of Hester Street (BFI Film Classics, Bloomsbury 2025).
Julia is a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle she is passionate about media education and public engagement.
Joan Micklin Silver’s remarkable feature debut is a vivid, lovingly detailed evocation of the late-nineteenth-century Jewish Lower East Side built around a luminous, Academy Award–nominated performance from Carol Kane as Gitl, a young woman from Eastern Europe who arrives in New York to join her husband Yankel (Steven Keats) who has already emigrated.
While Yankel, who now goes by Jake, has quickly acclimated to life in America—and even begun an affair with a dancer—Gitl initially struggles to assimilate.
As she attempts to find her place within an unfamiliar culture, Gitl must find a way to become a victor instead of a victim.
