Documentary About Streit’s Matzo Scores Festival Run Just Before the Lower East Side Departure

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The Streit’s Matzo factory only has a few months left on the Lower East Side, the neighborhood it called home for ninety years. After Passover – concluding April 11 – it’s all she wrote.

In the end, it was filmmaker Michael Levine and producer Michael Green who chronicled the final years of the matzo-makers at 148-154 Rivington Street, diving into the everyday minutia that makes the brand great. The resultant documentary, Streit’s: Matzo and the American Dream – in production since 2013 – is now available for public consumption.

We are told that Menemsha Films, a leading independent film distrbutor, and the premier distributor of Jewish-themed films in North America, has acquired the North American rights to distribute the indie doc. The film will see its festival premiere at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival in February, and is also slated to appear on at least four screens in South Florida beginning March 20.

But you can catch it at the JCC Manhattan shortly thereafter. There are four showings on two dates – March 29 and April 7. Head here for tickets.

“We’re absolutely thrilled to have found, in Menemsha, a distributor who not only has an amazing reputation in the independent film world, but who is truly passionate about the story we’re telling,” producer Michael Green noted. “Menemsha’s founder, Neil Friedman, has family roots of his own on the Lower East Side, and the whole company has really rallied around the film.”

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The packaging machine

Nevertheless, it goes without saying that this is a bittersweet time for team Levine and the matzo movie.

“It wouldn’t be truthful to say there isn’t something bittersweet in the timing of film’s release, coming on the heels of the devastating news of the factory leaving the Lower East Side,” Levine quips. “We are still coming to terms with the loss to the neighborhood, and with our own feelings, having come to see the factory and those who work there as a second home, and a second family.”

Even though Streit’s: Matzo and the American Dream is just about ready to hit the silver screen, they are still raising some last-minute funds to finance costs of archival footage and music licensing, and a final studio mix, so feel free to chip in on the film’s website.