Jewish Film Festival

Foreign Letters

Florida Premiere!

Winner of an Honorable Mention at the Nashville International Film Festival and based on the filmmaker’s own personal immigration experience, FOREIGN LETTERS is a bittersweet coming-of-age film and a heartfelt story of discovering friendship.  Set in the pre-email era of the early 1980s, young Ellie, newly arrived to the US from Israel, anxiously waits for letters from her best friend back home.  Suffering from homesickness, language difficulties, and rejection at school, life brightens when she meets Thuy, a Vietnamese refugee her age.  As the two bond and become inseparable, they eventually hurt each other, and Ellie must find a way to restore their trust.  Gently told with an appreciative smile for all the honesty, heartache and good times that a true friendship delivers, FOREIGN LETTERS features the music of iconic Israeli musician Chava Alberstein, who was the director’s favorite musician when her family immigrated to the US in 1982.