British Council Logo UK Films Database
Project Detail

Simcha

Synopsis

Simcha (meaning happiness) explores the closed world of Hasidic women through the life stories of a powerful mother/daughter team who live in the Jewish ultra-orthodox community of North London. Images of "women's work" - Ita and Hindi in the workplace and at home preparing the shabbos meal - depict the crucial role of the woman in Hasidic religious life and nurturing Jewish identity. A passionate and disturbingly-frank commentary.

Details

Year
2001
Type of project
Shorts
Running time
10 mins 55 secs
Format
16mm, Optical, Kodak
Director
Julia Dover
Producer
The London International Film School
Executive Producer
The London International Film School
Editor
Asim Ullah
Director of Photography
Shu-Hao Chou
Sound
Asim Ullah
Principal cast
Hindi Pesach, Ita Symons plus family

Categories

Fiction Documentary

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

The London International Film School

Contact: Chrissy Bright
24 Shelton Street
London WC2H 9HP
UK

T +44 020 7836 9642

c.bright@lifs.org.uk

Sales Company

The London International Film School

Contact: Chrissy Bright
24 Shelton Street
London WC2H 9HP
UK

T +44 020 7836 9642

c.bright@lifs.org.uk

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

Little Flowers Little Flowers

Director: Julia Dover

Year: 2002

Alma, anorexic, enters a hospital for treatment, and finds herself caught in the competitive games of the other patients. Their grip on her is loosened by her curiosity about the gardening handyman whom she watches through the windows. When the leader of the group bolts to kill herself, Alma hesitates.

Woman Director Drama
A transmasc driver sits in their car staring out of the window Dread

Director: Gabe Gabriel, Loren Loubser

Year: 2026

Soft-spoken transmasc driver, Toni, is used to dealing with an array of strange customers in their day-to-day work transporting locals and tourists through the economically divided City of Cape Town in their late father’s vintage Daimler. But when Claudia, a German digital nomad with blonde dreadlocks, offloads a traumatic story on a short ride across town, Toni’s car becomes dangerously possessed with Claudia’s invisible trauma demon. Inside Out Film Festival 2026 Wicked Queer: Boston's LGBTQ+ Film Festival 2026

Horror
Main character from The Things We Don't Say lying on the ground, looking contemplative The Things We Don't Say

Director: Ornella Mutoni

Year: 2024

A group of young adults born during or just after the 1994 genocide against Rwanda's Tutsi people gather to find the courage to break a powerful taboo. Rwanda is one of the few nations in the world providing specialist counselling for children conceived through rape, who number 10,000 across the country. Here, course leader Emilienne, a mother, therapist and genocide survivor, helps the group to imagine a future free from family secrets and societal stigma. In a circle of supportive peers, they tell their individual stories and face their struggles together, in the hope their participation will advocate for others facing similar trauma. Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2024 NY African Film Festival 2025

Black Woman Director