by FilmInk Staff
Filmed in first-person POV, Yuri Zeltser’s Circumcision is a tragicomedy about an agnostic man, whose life is completely falling apart (and whose face we never see), until he comes to believe that his pre-teen son is the Messiah, destined to save the world.
Australian filmmaker (and SF3 Ambassador) Philip Noyce says “Circumcision is the way forward to filmmakers, a true film of innovation and making a film despite lack of funds and support.”
Yuri could not get financing and so he decided to shoot this on his iPhone 10. And in the hands of a skilled master such as Yuri, the film looks like it was shot on any of the big cameras. He also did not have any budget to pay a leading actor and so he decided to shoot the whole film in a POV format and problem solved. He is a true inspiration for independent filmmakers everywhere and the time for people to know about this is now – as financing dries up and is harder to get than ever. This is how filmmakers can make films in 2024 and beyond.
Circumcision is playing as a special screening to close the SF3 festival at the Randwick Ritz on Monday 18th November at 6:30pm (as well as online for the following week).
Tickets – https://www.ritzcinemas.com.au/movies/circumcision
Esteemed film critic Todd McCarthy called it “mind-boggling, riveting, and uncompromising. Grips you from the beginning and never lets go. I’ve never seen another film like it.” Director Phillip Noyce called it “brilliant, beautiful and original” and “a wonderfully inventive example of next-gen filmmaking”. Producer Ram Bergman (Knives Out, The Last Jedi) called it a “great film”. Producer Nikos Karamigios (American Fiction) called it “extremely personal and emotionally powerful, yet very funny as well.”
Director Bio
Yuri Zeltser was born behind the Iron Curtain – gee thanks, mom and dad! He jumped over that Curtain when he was a teenager and landed in New York – thanks mom, dad, and a “Jews for Grain” trade deal between Russia and America! Yuri got accepted to the NYU Film School and became a filmmaker – thanks to… well no, he did THAT on his own. Or so he liked to delude himself. Back in Russia, when Yuri got kicked out of high school for daring to be born Jewish, he joined an underground film club – because watching movies was his one true passion – and because that was the only club that would have him as a member. They loved, they hated, they made bad Super 8 movies. But mostly they watched, argued, lived and breathed everything FILM. A communist party president-du-jour may have been King, but Tarkovsky was God. It wasn’t easy to get access to quality films, so they feasted on whatever scraps they could find – like a black-and-white 80-minute version of The Conformist (all the juicy parts cut out by censors), or an incomprehensible, terribly translated Godfather, P.2 (the original Godfather was banned).
At NYU, Yuri’s thesis film won Best Directing at annual festival, and that got Yuri into the AFI directing program. Welcome to LA! Yuri’s first feature screenplay (horror shlock) was produced by Gale Anne Hurd (on a dare, as the rumour goes). Yuri got a co-story credit, which allowed him not to sell off his body parts for medical research, and he still continues receiving 8-cent residuals every quarter. Sweet! Even though David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr is one of Yuri’s all-time favourite movies, Hollywood has been nicer to him than to that film’s main character. He has had the great fortune of working with great directors and producers like Janet Yang, Phillip Noyce, Carl Franklin, Roger Spottiswood, Oliver Stone. He wrote Spinning Boris (directed by Roger Spottiswood), which won the Audience Award at the Hamptons Film Festival and was nominated for a Writers’ Guild Award. High Crimes (directed by Carl Franklin) opened second at the Box Office and is still putting a little residual food on Yuri’s table. As director, Yuri was insanely lucky to work with truly great actors like Dennis Hopper, Colin Firth, Gina Gershon, Ron Silver, Seymour Cassel, Scott Cohen, Bokeem Woodbine, Angela Bettis and others. His film The Circle was the very first one-shot-no-cuts-honestly-no cheating movie ever. His Our Little Secret won Best Feature and Best Actress at the Cinefest. But Yuri’s most fruitful and inspiring collaborations are with the producer extraordinaire Ram Bergman, who produced two of Yuri’s movies and hired him to do script work on several others. They are currently collaborating on a hot-topic limited series. In 2016, due to a certain political development, Yuri briefly (but melodramatically) considered moving to Canada, or anywhere, but decided to write Circumcision instead.
Director’s Statement: Gustave Flaubert, in discussing his greatest novel Madame Bovary, famously said: “Madame Bovary is me.” Well, Circumcision is me. Not JUST me, of course – many super-talented people made this movie happen. But it’s ALL of ME. My life, my family, my relationships. My roots, my past, my connection to Judaism. My dreams, doubts, and beliefs. My thoughts and prayers – literally.
The movie was conceived as a deeply personal, internal journey of a man, whose world is crumbling around him, forcing him to face his demons and discover his true faith. From the very start, it was clear to me that there is only one way to film this story – in first person. We never get to see the main character’s face. Charlie is me, and this movie is what he sees; it’s his vision, his perception – real or imaginary, for better or worse.
The unseen Charlie is voiced by the amazing Scott Cohen, who also plays three other characters – Kevin (Charlie’s best friend and possibly alter ego), Ivan Karamazov, and a Demon who torments him (from Dostoyevsky’s novel Charlie is translating). Scott Cohen, currently seen starring in The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed (Cannes, NYFF) carries the movie on his dark, sarcastic, guilt-ridden shoulders. But he’s not alone. Charlie’s complex interactions with his children and the women in his life require serious acting chops from the supporting cast. Leading the way (as Charlie’s disillusioned ex-wife) is Angela Bettis, who also starred in my movies The Circle and Our Little Secret. She’s my muse. My platonic soul mate. A brilliant actor, full stop.
And then there is Romyn Smith, who plays SHANE, Charlie’s kid. Originally, I wrote the part for my tween son. We started principal photography in March, 2020, filmed for several days and… got shut down by Covid. Two years later, we were ready to restart, but… my son had changed, turned into an annoying teenager. Sadly, he was no longer right for the part. We literally had to start from scratch – to find another young actor, who was as good as my son – to play my son. It took us several months of virtually auditioning potential Shanes, until we found Romyn. And what an amazing find he was! I’m so looking forward to watching this kid mature and become a major movie star.
There was another silver lining the tragic Covid cloud. The delay allowed us to get the brilliant, award winning Alexei Aigui to compose and perform an original score. Aigui (I Am Not Your Negro, Hirokazu Koreeda’s The Truth) is currently dealing with another existential crisis of global proportions. Due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Aigui was forced to escape Russia and is living in exile – separated from his family, his home, his orchestra. He responded viscerally to a rough cut of our movie and wrote an incredible score, reflecting and expanding our main character’s internal struggle, his dark sense of humour and (possibly) a tragic descent into madness, as the world is ostensibly coming to an end. Without access (and budget) to a sound studio, Aigui (with a few fellow exiled musicians) performed and recorded the score in a semi-abandoned French church, creating a striking, haunting sound.
And so now we have a finished film. My daughter said that I had made a documentary about my life. Of course, that’s a joke. It’s certainly true that Charlie’s quest for his true identity and true faith is similar to my own. And yet, Circumcision is fiction. At the very least, it’s an attempt to show how we can possibly reconcile the unreconcilable, how to try to inspire our kids not to give up on faith, and how to learn from them not to give up on hope.
