Couched in Reality

The movie “Divan (The Couch)” chronicles an ex-Chasidic woman’s journey to Hungary to retrieve a family heirloom, her great-grandfather’s couch, which in the process becomes a journey of self-discovery. If this premise sounds as if it might hew close to reality, that’s because it does. It’s a documentary. And the woman on that quest for identity is the movie’s filmmaker, Pearl Gluck.

Gluck, who grew up Orthodox in Borough Park, was recently in town holding screenings of the finished footage in hopes of raising financial backing to complete her project. Begun in 1998, “Divan” “incorporates a lot of the work I’ve done in the past in education, research” but was the fruit of a Fulbright scholarship to Hungary, where Gluck collected many Yiddish studies. The filmmaker hopes to complete the project by June, which is when she plans to start editing. Afterward, Gluck says that she plans to circulate her documentary in art house and film festival circles.

While in Los Angeles, Gluck held an L.A. benefit, which was co-hosted by Yiddishkayt L.A., at the home of Brad and Evie Gold in the Hancock Park area, where she screened her unfinished film. With an increasing desire to travel and study, the filmmaker had to come to terms with issues of individualism and independence, of “not fitting in. I’m not bitter or angry or need to quite throw it all away. I still have a relationship with my family and my community.”

During her stay in Israel, she was fascinated to learn of a New Israel Fund-sponsored hotline established to assist those who were segueing from Orthodoxy into the mainstream.While making “Divan,” Gluck learned that she wasn’t the only Orthodox expatriate out there.”There’s a whole community of us on the periphery,” says Gluck, “struggling to find a bridge. I’m not saying that you cannot be an individual, but they do it within an accepted structure that’s not the kind of lifestyle that fit for me. It’s a very beautiful lifestyle,” says the 28-year-old Brandeis graduate, who believes that her film celebrates those Chasidic traditions and values. Past funding for “Divan (The Couch)” has been provided by the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, the Fulbright International Institute for Education, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the Memorial Foundation, and other donors. “Divan” is a nonprofit project sponsored by The New York Foundation for the Arts.

Anyone interested in contacting the filmmaker regarding “Divan (The Couch)” can e-mail pearl@panix.com