Synopsis
Fill the Void tells the story of an Orthodox Hassidic family from Tel Aviv. Eighteen-year-old Shira is the youngest daughter of the family. She is about to be married off to a promising young man of the same age and background. It is a dream-come-true, and Shira feels prepared and excited. On Purim, her twenty-eight-year-old sister, Esther, dies while giving birth to her first child. The pain and grief that overwhelm the family postpone Shira\'s promised match. When the girls\' mother finds out that Yochay may leave the country with her only grandchild, she proposes a match between Shira and the widower. Shira will have to choose between her heart\'s wish and her family duty...

Program Note
Shira, the youngest daughter of an orthodox Jewish family, is about to have a blind date with a man arranged by her family. Peeking at the man before the big day, she is filled with anticipation that the romantic fantasy she has dreamed of will come true at last. As she develops her emotions, her older sister suddenly dies during childbirth, bringing an unexpected turmoil to Shira’s life. Wanting to keep within her family the baby left by her dead daughter, Shira’s mother forces Shira to marry her sister’s husband, Yohai, which places Shira at a position conflicting between her own life and her family’s expectations. In Fill the Void, the modern Israeli city unravels a feudal society where family means the whole world and one’s marital status determines his or her social status. As a much-talked-about Israeli woman film examining the orthodox Jewish community, Fill the Void conveys the community’s exclusiveness by shooting images through narrow camera angles, as if the camera is peeking through an open door. In a background that befits Jane AUSTEN novels, Shira, our 21st century heroine, gradually loses her true colors as her family slowly suffocates her. The film does not bluntly attack the conservative nature of the Jewish community or put individual desire first, but skillfully portrays the reality how a woman at last makes her decision within the realm of mundane order. [LEE Hyo-jeong]