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A chance meeting at a Jewish retreat in upstate New York not only led to a multi award-winning documentary called "Praying with Lior," but a deep friendship between the film's protaganist, Lior Liebling, and its director, Ilana Trachtman (pictured here).
"Searching for spiritual inspiration outside the stale synagogue experience of my childhood, I attended a retreat for the Jewish New Year," Ms. Trachtman is quoted as saying on the film's Web site. "As I sat in the service, anxious, distracted, counting the pages until I’d be free, I heard Lior’s unabashed, off-key, ecstatic voice. When I turned to look at the source of this sound, I was struck to see a boy with Down syndrome. And I was surprised to find myself envious of this 'disabled' child, who could pray as I wished I could. Over the course of this retreat, I stalked Lior, looking for the secret to his prayer. When I heard he was having a Bar Mitzvah, I pictured the movie version. And then I realized that I could make it. "
Ms. Trachtman told me during a telephone conversation we had Monday that all this happened over a period of one day. The result is a documentary that I could argue is misnamed because we, as viewers, spend far more time actually "Living with Lior" then praying with him. We discover an earnest, passionate, fun-loving, humorous, intelligent young man, similar to many others with communications and learning disabilities I have come to know and be inspired by. It could also be called "Living with Lior's Family" because Ms. Trachtman gives viewers the opportunity to get to know Lior's father, stepmother, siblings and, most delicately of all, his mother who died before Ms. Trachtman met the family.
The film gets its title, as a matter of fact, from an essay with that same title that Devorah, Lior's mother wrote. She knew she was dying of cancer, but hoped she could live long enough to see her son, whom she believed had formed a special alliance with God, celebrate his bar mitzvah. It was not to be. Devorah died in 1997, when Lior was only 6 years 0ld. Her spirit, however, looms over the entire film, not only because of Lior's feelings about his mother but because of home movies Ms. Trachtman secured of Devorah and Lior.
"Initially, when I started working on the film, I wasn't that much in touch with (Devorah and her influence on Lior)," Ms. Trachtman told me. "I may have even actually tried to avoid it because it seemed so delicate and I didn't want to exploit the family's grief. I also wanted to be respectful of Lior's stepmother. But as I was working on the film I realized it was impossible to tell Lior's story in a real, whole way without also telling her story. And the truth is, Devorah's presence is something that is felt and is something that is connected to Lior."
But what's remarkable about Ms. Trachtman's treatment of Lior is that she expands on that person his mother talked about to show us a young man who not only prays fervently, but also plays air hockey with his brother, participates in Little League baseball, likes to exercise on the trampoline, watches TV and, yes, even throws a bit of a hissy fit when told he can't wear a white dress shirt to dinner. In other words, Lior is representative of just about any Jewish boy with Down Syndrome about to participate in his bar mitzvah.
The important question the film raises, however, is that how many Jewish boys with Down Syndrome will be able to participate in their bar mitzvahs. Because the true heroes of "Praying with Lior" are all those individuals in Lior's support network, who accept, love and encourage him. How many others in Lior's situation -- Jewish, Christian, Moslem, whatever -- have that kind of support network around them? That's one of the issues that will be explored Thursday, Sept. 4, when "Praying with Lior" has a special 7 p.m. screening at the Angelika Film Center at Mockingbird Station. Not only will Ms. Trachtman be present to discuss the movie and answer questions about it, immediately prior to the screening the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas will offer an update on the progress of its Special Needs Initiative and others will explore how to create a more "whole" community which includes and accommodates everyone.
Ms. Trachtman's film has the courage to show that this kind of support doesn't come easily or without a price. One of the more interesting persons in the movie is Anna, Lior's younger sister, who seems to resent Lior for stealing familial affection that otherwise would have come to her.
"When I thought about putting together the film, I wanted to be kind to Anna because I knew what this protrayal was going to do to her," Ms. Trachtman told me. "I also thought about the fact that we were representing millions of siblings, siblings who are younger than the siblings with disabilities and how incredibly universal her experience is. So many people see the movie and say 'My older brother has autism, my older sister has cerebral palsy and I could never say those things about being frustrated and jealous. It's really a rlief to hear somebody else say them.' So where I do feel she felt sort of robbed, I think a lot of kids in her family system and that birth order feel robbed."
Ms. Trachtman also said that Anna was at a special age when the film was being shot.
"Being 11 years old is a really uncomfortable time for every single girl," the director said. "Any girl you film at that age is going to be painful to watch. Anna is on the other side of puberty now. I actually just finished follow-up interviews with the family because the educational DVD is going to come out in October and we're putting followups on there as bonus features. (Anna) talks about how she sort of dislikes herself in the film and herself in that moment in time. The way she talked about Lior in the film is not the way she thinks about Lior today.
"Their relationship took a very intense journey because they are only a year and a half apart. For a long time they were sort of equal in terms of their intellectual ability. They were almost in the same place. And they were each other's best friend. Before Lior could speak, which was about 4, Anna used to translate for him. So, to a certain degree, as she outpaced him a few years later, they both lost their best friends. Now Anna's in high school and has high school friends and high school interests and now sees Lior has less of a confusing burdon and more as a friend for what he is, not what he isn't."
And what is Lior like today?
"He's the same person you see in the movie except he is more mature and a lot more practiced speaking before audiences," Ms. Trachtman said. "He is maturing the way any kid goes from being a 13-year-old to a 17-year-old. He has a deeper sense of himself, a more focused idea of what the future might be. He's just more grown up, but at the same time, he's the same person. He still goes to services every Saturday morning. For his 17th birthday, the present his family got him was to lead the congregation services. He's doing extremely well in school. He's on the honor roll. He takes five academic classes with kids who have learning disabilities but do not necessarily have Down Syndrome or some other mental retardation. Last year he was a sophomore and was asked to the junior prom by a junior and went to the junior prom. Yeah, he's been good."
There is a moment in the film in which Lior says he is convinced that both his mother and the messiah will return for his bar mitzvah. Because the film doesn't follow up on this in the scenes shot after the bar mitzvah, I asked the director if she discussed this with Lior.
"When I talked to him about this, it became clear that he has a pretty complicated view of messiah, which is really a reflection of the complicated religion he is absorbing," Ms. Trachtman said. "The family is observant in a very liberal way. Both this father and his late mother were reconstructionist rabbis. But the school he goes to is an orthodox school. There's a real difference in the way the messiah is thought of and taught. In the orthodox school where he goes, the messiah really is a being that will come and resurrect the dead and usher in a new world, a new consciousness. In the reconstructionist world, the messiah is much more a concept of people self-actualization. So Lior could say quite accurately that his mother's spirit was present at that bar mitzvah because, of course, everyone was thinking about her. But I don't know that he was disappointed that a being didn't show up with his mother on the back of a horse."
Although Ms. Trachtman has "a couple of other films in development," including one about Mexican-American teenagers "through the lens of a competitive high school mariachi band," the director who got her start as a production assistant on the PBS television series "Reading Rainbows" still finds herself immersed with Lior.
"It's amazing to me that the response to the film has been so big that here it is, a year after the film opened at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, and most of my time is involved in the presentation of it. We're about to have the international premier of the film in Israel in October and then there will be the whole international run. I thought I would have moved on a long time ago, but I am still very much in the middle of this."
Tickets for the Sept. 4 screening are $9 and must be purchased in advance, either by going to the Web site of 3 Stars Cinema or by calling Melissa Bernstein at 214-239-7134. The screening is being coordinated by the Special Needs Initiative of the Jewish Federation in partnership with the Aaron Family Jewish Community Center, 3 Stars Cinema and the Down Syndrome Guild of Dallas.
"Searching for spiritual inspiration outside the stale synagogue experience of my childhood, I attended a retreat for the Jewish New Year," Ms. Trachtman is quoted as saying on the film's Web site. "As I sat in the service, anxious, distracted, counting the pages until I’d be free, I heard Lior’s unabashed, off-key, ecstatic voice. When I turned to look at the source of this sound, I was struck to see a boy with Down syndrome. And I was surprised to find myself envious of this 'disabled' child, who could pray as I wished I could. Over the course of this retreat, I stalked Lior, looking for the secret to his prayer. When I heard he was having a Bar Mitzvah, I pictured the movie version. And then I realized that I could make it. "
Ms. Trachtman told me during a telephone conversation we had Monday that all this happened over a period of one day. The result is a documentary that I could argue is misnamed because we, as viewers, spend far more time actually "Living with Lior" then praying with him. We discover an earnest, passionate, fun-loving, humorous, intelligent young man, similar to many others with communications and learning disabilities I have come to know and be inspired by. It could also be called "Living with Lior's Family" because Ms. Trachtman gives viewers the opportunity to get to know Lior's father, stepmother, siblings and, most delicately of all, his mother who died before Ms. Trachtman met the family.
The film gets its title, as a matter of fact, from an essay with that same title that Devorah, Lior's mother wrote. She knew she was dying of cancer, but hoped she could live long enough to see her son, whom she believed had formed a special alliance with God, celebrate his bar mitzvah. It was not to be. Devorah died in 1997, when Lior was only 6 years 0ld. Her spirit, however, looms over the entire film, not only because of Lior's feelings about his mother but because of home movies Ms. Trachtman secured of Devorah and Lior.
"Initially, when I started working on the film, I wasn't that much in touch with (Devorah and her influence on Lior)," Ms. Trachtman told me. "I may have even actually tried to avoid it because it seemed so delicate and I didn't want to exploit the family's grief. I also wanted to be respectful of Lior's stepmother. But as I was working on the film I realized it was impossible to tell Lior's story in a real, whole way without also telling her story. And the truth is, Devorah's presence is something that is felt and is something that is connected to Lior."
But what's remarkable about Ms. Trachtman's treatment of Lior is that she expands on that person his mother talked about to show us a young man who not only prays fervently, but also plays air hockey with his brother, participates in Little League baseball, likes to exercise on the trampoline, watches TV and, yes, even throws a bit of a hissy fit when told he can't wear a white dress shirt to dinner. In other words, Lior is representative of just about any Jewish boy with Down Syndrome about to participate in his bar mitzvah.
The important question the film raises, however, is that how many Jewish boys with Down Syndrome will be able to participate in their bar mitzvahs. Because the true heroes of "Praying with Lior" are all those individuals in Lior's support network, who accept, love and encourage him. How many others in Lior's situation -- Jewish, Christian, Moslem, whatever -- have that kind of support network around them? That's one of the issues that will be explored Thursday, Sept. 4, when "Praying with Lior" has a special 7 p.m. screening at the Angelika Film Center at Mockingbird Station. Not only will Ms. Trachtman be present to discuss the movie and answer questions about it, immediately prior to the screening the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas will offer an update on the progress of its Special Needs Initiative and others will explore how to create a more "whole" community which includes and accommodates everyone.
Ms. Trachtman's film has the courage to show that this kind of support doesn't come easily or without a price. One of the more interesting persons in the movie is Anna, Lior's younger sister, who seems to resent Lior for stealing familial affection that otherwise would have come to her.
"When I thought about putting together the film, I wanted to be kind to Anna because I knew what this protrayal was going to do to her," Ms. Trachtman told me. "I also thought about the fact that we were representing millions of siblings, siblings who are younger than the siblings with disabilities and how incredibly universal her experience is. So many people see the movie and say 'My older brother has autism, my older sister has cerebral palsy and I could never say those things about being frustrated and jealous. It's really a rlief to hear somebody else say them.' So where I do feel she felt sort of robbed, I think a lot of kids in her family system and that birth order feel robbed."
Ms. Trachtman also said that Anna was at a special age when the film was being shot.
"Being 11 years old is a really uncomfortable time for every single girl," the director said. "Any girl you film at that age is going to be painful to watch. Anna is on the other side of puberty now. I actually just finished follow-up interviews with the family because the educational DVD is going to come out in October and we're putting followups on there as bonus features. (Anna) talks about how she sort of dislikes herself in the film and herself in that moment in time. The way she talked about Lior in the film is not the way she thinks about Lior today.
"Their relationship took a very intense journey because they are only a year and a half apart. For a long time they were sort of equal in terms of their intellectual ability. They were almost in the same place. And they were each other's best friend. Before Lior could speak, which was about 4, Anna used to translate for him. So, to a certain degree, as she outpaced him a few years later, they both lost their best friends. Now Anna's in high school and has high school friends and high school interests and now sees Lior has less of a confusing burdon and more as a friend for what he is, not what he isn't."
And what is Lior like today?
"He's the same person you see in the movie except he is more mature and a lot more practiced speaking before audiences," Ms. Trachtman said. "He is maturing the way any kid goes from being a 13-year-old to a 17-year-old. He has a deeper sense of himself, a more focused idea of what the future might be. He's just more grown up, but at the same time, he's the same person. He still goes to services every Saturday morning. For his 17th birthday, the present his family got him was to lead the congregation services. He's doing extremely well in school. He's on the honor roll. He takes five academic classes with kids who have learning disabilities but do not necessarily have Down Syndrome or some other mental retardation. Last year he was a sophomore and was asked to the junior prom by a junior and went to the junior prom. Yeah, he's been good."
There is a moment in the film in which Lior says he is convinced that both his mother and the messiah will return for his bar mitzvah. Because the film doesn't follow up on this in the scenes shot after the bar mitzvah, I asked the director if she discussed this with Lior.
"When I talked to him about this, it became clear that he has a pretty complicated view of messiah, which is really a reflection of the complicated religion he is absorbing," Ms. Trachtman said. "The family is observant in a very liberal way. Both this father and his late mother were reconstructionist rabbis. But the school he goes to is an orthodox school. There's a real difference in the way the messiah is thought of and taught. In the orthodox school where he goes, the messiah really is a being that will come and resurrect the dead and usher in a new world, a new consciousness. In the reconstructionist world, the messiah is much more a concept of people self-actualization. So Lior could say quite accurately that his mother's spirit was present at that bar mitzvah because, of course, everyone was thinking about her. But I don't know that he was disappointed that a being didn't show up with his mother on the back of a horse."
Although Ms. Trachtman has "a couple of other films in development," including one about Mexican-American teenagers "through the lens of a competitive high school mariachi band," the director who got her start as a production assistant on the PBS television series "Reading Rainbows" still finds herself immersed with Lior.
"It's amazing to me that the response to the film has been so big that here it is, a year after the film opened at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, and most of my time is involved in the presentation of it. We're about to have the international premier of the film in Israel in October and then there will be the whole international run. I thought I would have moved on a long time ago, but I am still very much in the middle of this."
Tickets for the Sept. 4 screening are $9 and must be purchased in advance, either by going to the Web site of 3 Stars Cinema or by calling Melissa Bernstein at 214-239-7134. The screening is being coordinated by the Special Needs Initiative of the Jewish Federation in partnership with the Aaron Family Jewish Community Center, 3 Stars Cinema and the Down Syndrome Guild of Dallas.
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