TAHARA

Sometimes first loves are beautiful culminations of innocent flirtation and yearning sighs; other times, they’re set at Hebrew school after a classmate’s suicide and the result of years of gaslighting. Brooklyn-based director Olivia Peace’s feature debut is a bitingly dark comedy about growing up, growing into queerness, and growing out of toxic, lox-and-shmear-fueled horndog escapades in the synagogue library. Madeline Grey DeFreece shines as the sensitive, sensible Carrie, whose crush on her destructively needy best friend Hannah (NewFest double-hitter Rachel Sennott [SHIVA BABY]) is about to be put to the test. With Jess Zeidman's incisive and brilliant script evoking shades of 2001’s GHOST WORLD, and cinematographer Tehillah De Castro's perfect portraiture of suburban Rochester, TAHARA was a breakaway hit out of this year’s Slamdance Film Festival. By turns hilarious, deeply felt, and deeply screwed up in the way only teenagers can be, TAHARA is the kind of coming-of-age story some might wish they had before they knew there was life after the bat mitzvah.

Cast: Rachel Sennott, Madeline Grey DeFreece, Shlomit Azoulay, Daniel Taveras, Bernadette Quigley

Writer: Jess Zeidman

Part of The 32nd Annual New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival

Presented in partnership with The Future of Film is Female and Women Make Movies

Olivia Peace