The Sacred Society

Description

Trailer

Synopsis

In the end, our bodies are as fragile and ephemeral as paintings made of sand. Who will care for them when our time is over?

There is a group of volunteers in Jewish tradition who clean and prepare and dress the dead. THE SACRED SOCIETY is about these men, why they choose this work, and how it changes them. Illustrated with flowing, haunting sand animation, this documentary explores the importance of sacred ritual in helping us find meaning in our brief lives.

Funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Director

Benny Zelkowicz is an animator (The LEGO Movie, Robot Chicken, The Simpsons), voice actor (Lunar Jim on BBC/CBC), and novelist (The Books of Ore Trilogy published by Disney-Hyperion). He studied with Jules Engel, Raimund Krumme, and Suzan Pitt at CalArts, graduating with an MFA in Experimental Animation in 2002. His sand-animated film, “The ErlKing” premiered at Lincoln Center as part of the New York Film Festival, went on to screen at more than forty festivals including Sundance, Annecy, Hiroshima, and Zagreb, and was a finalist for the Student Academy Awards. He wrote and illustrated the picture book, “The Golem’s Gift”, which he adapted into a musical for the Northwest Children’s Theater in Portland, OR. He has also published two neuroscience papers in a major international journal and once parallel parked a 22-foot lime green fire truck. He currently lives in Columbus and teaches animation at the Ohio State University.