Ady Walter’s SHTTL is a beautifully crafted one-shot drama capturing a day in a Jewish shtetl just hours before Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa.

Mendele (Moshe Lobel), an aspiring filmmaker who left his Hasidic upbringing in the Lviv Region, returns to his rural Ukrainian shtetl on June 21, 1941. He arrives with his Ukrainian best friend, Demyan (Petro Ninovskiy), hoping to escape with Yuna (Anisia Stasevich), daughter of Rebbe Weitsenzang (Saul Rubinek). Mendele expects to marry her, but his plan collides with the reality that she’s already committed to marrying Folie (Antoine Millet), the butcher’s son and a devout Hasid eager to inherit the Rebbe’s mantle—upsetting the fragile balance of the community.

SHTTL unfolds almost in real time, capturing a single day in a Jewish village on the brink of erasure in nearly two hours. Soviet propaganda has already been reshaping local life, threatening long-held traditions, and Mendele’s return only widens the ideological rifts. As he reconnects with townspeople and stirs up buried tensions, the shtetl becomes a portrait of a world wrestling with modern pressures, unaware that its final hours are slipping away.

Just beyond the Polish border, Nazi Germany prepares to launch Operation Barbarossa, the invasion that will obliterate communities like this one. SHTTL echoes that historical loss in its production history: the filmmakers had fully rebuilt a traditional shtetl 60 kilometers outside Kyiv, intending to preserve it as an open-air museum. Unfortunately, the set—consisting of 25 buildings in one of the last re-creations of such a village—was later destroyed amid the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, underscoring the story’s haunting sense of disappearance.

SHTTL has been on my radar since it was first selected for the BFI London Film Festival, what feels like forever ago. Unfortunately, I didn’t get around to watching it until last week, despite the fact that its U.S. release started earlier in 2025. It was worth the wait to finally take in the film. Volodymyr Ivanov’s Golden Dzyga–nominated cinematography and Ivan Levchenko’s Golden Dzyga–nominated production design are worth experiencing on a movie screen. The set featured one of the largest hand-painted shuls in the world, and many household items were brought in from all over Ukraine. What was intended to become a museum has become a time capsule in its own way.

What amazes me is that SHTTL is Ady Walter’s first feature film. To say that the first-time feature filmmaker hit a home run out of the park is not an understatement. Say what you will, but I think the film has the potential to go down as one of the all-time great films about Jewish life in Eastern Europe. Walter is wise to stop short of showing the inevitable death and destruction that we all know is coming.

The fact that it is a oner just makes it all the more impressive. Oners are not easy, as seen in 1917 or The Studio. The framing and editing have to be absolutely perfect. There are moments where the film really lets us take it all in, especially inside the shul. At least, those are some of the moments that jump out to me as I’m writing this. But what makes this one different from others is how it is not told in real time, opting instead to stretch the time span from day to night and into early morning.

SHTTL lets audiences know what the state of the world was heading into June 21, 1941. The district of Sokal in Galicia had been invaded by the Red Army in September 1939 and incorporated into the USSR. The Sovietization of the countryside that followed was chaotic, resulting in tensions with local populations. The shtetl we see in the film may draw from history, but at the end of the day, it is an imaginary one located in Soviet Ukraine. Across the river, Nazi Germany occupied Eastern Poland.

The film’s post-script tragically informs viewers about what transpired on June 22, 1941. This was the day that the first shooting of Jews by the 17th Wehrmacht Army took place in Sokal on the first day of Operation Barbarossa.

SHTTL is a striking achievement. Walter’s direction, Ivanov’s cinematography, and Levchenko’s production design create a fully realized world that feels lived-in and immediate. The film balances historical context with human detail, showing shtetl life while foreshadowing the coming catastrophe. It is exacting, immersive, and powerful—a film that rewards close attention.

DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER: Ady Walter
CAST: Moshe Lobel, Antoine Millet, Anisia Stasevich, Petro Ninovskyi, Daniel Kenigsberg, Emily Karpel, and Saul Rubinek

Menemsha Films released SHTTL in theaters on May 2, 2025. Grade: 5/5

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