Love, Hate, and Silence at a NYC Film Festival

For anyone worried that women are being reobjectified through social media, “Passed You on Pico” offers up a feminist alternative: a pin-up calendar of (fully dressed) men called Hasidic Hotties. Written, produced and starring Chloe Traicos, the new pilot just won “Best TV Pilot” at the New York City International Film Festival (NYCIFF).

LA resident Traicos describes the pilot as “a comedy about Orthodox Jewish singles who will do anything to find love.” Her inspiration? “I lived it.” 

The pilot episode, directed by Evan Blank, follows the comedic struggles of dating life within the Orthodox Jewish community of Pico-Robertson in Los Angeles. LA resident Traicos describes the pilot as “a comedy about Orthodox Jewish singles folks who will do anything to find love.” Her inspiration? “I lived it.” 

The actress, who played Walton Goggins’ wife in HBO’s hit TV series “The Righteous Gemstones,” is hardly new to film writing. Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Traicos was forced to flee the country in 2005 after having made a controversial documentary about the country’s leader, Robert Mugabe, called “A Stranger in my Homeland.” In the documentary, Chloe speaks out on behalf of the Zimbabwean people who have spent years being persecuted and starved. Despite the fact she had to leave the country, Traicos went on to win Best Director in a Documentary for the film at the Amnesty International Film Festival.

Chloe then immigrated to Australia with her parents and sister, where she wrote, produced and starred in “I Wish I Were Stephanie V,” which opened the NYCIFF in 2011 with a special screening outside in Times Square. After moving to LA, Traicos wrote and starred in “One Day in Hollywood: Introducing Jodea” (2021), a low-budget romantic comedy that is available on all major platforms.

“All of my characters are always inspired by real people,” Traicos told the Journal. “Of course, in order to be more commercial you have to exaggerate them a bit.” 

Winning Best Documentary was “15 Days with Kanye,” made before his antisemitic fall from grace. Created by “celebrity” bodyguard and former NYPD officer Steve Stanulis, the film presents his side of an earlier Kanye imbroglio. After hiring him as his bodyguard, Kanye fired Stanulis for allegedly “flirting” with Kim Kardashian, then threatened him with a $30 million lawsuit. The documentary, directed by John Bianco, shows that Kanye’s arrogance, narcissism, lies, and rage are not just reserved for the Judean people. Notably, Kanye insisted that Stanulis guard him from “10 paces behind” in order to “stay out of my [media] shots.”

Winning Best International Documentary and Best Actor is an exquisite film called “Facing the Silence.” Fuensanta “La Moneta” is a Spanish flamenco dancer and choreographer whose life is changed when one of her students, a young Israeli woman, gives her a book of poems called “La Cabellera de la Shoá” — The Hair of the Shoah — by Félix Grande. As a gypsy herself, Fuensanta is so moved by the book that she goes to Auschwitz to confront the hair, the shoes, the nightmare. She returns to Spain to create a masterpiece, mixing dance, literature, music, and “the silent interpretation of millions of silent lives.” 

Grande uses the phrase “the cry of the soul” to describe what it was like to look at all of the shaven hair at Auschwitz. The phrase inspires Fuensanta and her students to dig deeply emotionally and spiritually to create, to dance, to live. 

In 1949 philosopher Theodor Adorno famously said that writing poetry — creating beauty — after Auschwitz was “barbaric.” What he couldn’t have known is that 70 years later we would be living in an era of anti-art, fed again by fascist ideologies. But that a book of poetry about the Holocaust could inspire young artists to begin to dig deeply again, to explore their own souls — and face the silence, both historically and in their own lives.

Karen Lehrman Bloch is editor in chief of White Rose Magazine.