The Department of English is co-sponsoring a film screening of Castles in the Sky (a 30-minute short film) directed by Pearl Gluck, Penn State Associate Professor of Film Production, on September 5 from 3:30-5:00pm.

The film depicts Malke, a Holocaust survivor and beloved sex-ed teacher living in a cloistered Hasidic community in Brooklyn. Malke has a secret life slamming poetry in New York’s Lower East Side, defying all communal norms and laws until her transgressive pursuits are discovered by one of her bridal students. Is Malke willing to risk it all for her poetry?

Creative Writing director Julia Spicher Kasdorf makes a brief cameo appearance in the film, reciting a poem she performed in the Nuyorican Poets Café back in the 1990s. Following the film screening, Kasdorf will take part in a conversation about cross-cultural conversations and art-making with the film’s director Professor Pearl Gluck, along with and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, a poet, writer, and translator who grew up in the Hasidic community, moderated by Penn State Sparks Professor of English Shara McCallum.

Please see the attached poster for more details about the event.