Producer – Michal Goldman

Co–producer - Ellen Brodsky

In Distribution, 2008

The Story

A home of one’s own: that’s the American dream. But what happens when the dreamers are immigrants, factory workers, and Communists?

In the mid-1920s, thousands of Jewish immigrant garment workers managed to catapult themselves out of urban slums and ghettos by pooling their resources and building four cooperatively owned and run apartment complexes in the Bronx. They believed that owning one’s home went a long way toward controlling one’s fate.

At Home in Utopia focuses on the United Workers Cooperative Colony – aka the Coops – the most grass-roots and member-driven of the Jewish labor housing cooperatives, where many of the residents were Communists or sympathetic to the communist movement. Beginning as a stalwartly secular East European Jewish working class enclave, they were part of an international movement the power of which blows minds today.

In the 1930s they opted to bring their passion for racial justice home, by racially integrating their own cooperative house, with unexpected consequences. An epic tale of the struggle for equity and justice across two generations, the film tracks the rise and fall of one community from the 1920s into the 1950s, paying close attention to the passions that bound them together and those that tore them apart. Along the way, At Home in Utopia bears witness to lives lived with courage across the barriers of race, nation, language, convention, and sometimes even common sense.

Key credits
Producer/writer/editor: Michal Goldman
Co-Producer: Ellen Brodsky
Story consultant: Andrew Hazelton
Narrator: Linda Lavin
Director of Photography: Boyd Estus
Original Music: John Kusiak
Consulting Editor: Peter Rhodes

At Home in Utopia is a co-production of ITVS and Michal Goldman, made in association with WGBH. The production received funding from the Puffin Foundation, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Humanities, Righteous Persons Foundation, Littauer Foundation, LEF Moving Image Fund, Klarman Family Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Sonya Staff Foundation, National Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the Driehaus Foundation, along with other foundations and individuals.

Upcoming Screenings of At Home in Utopia
If you would like to be notified about screenings near you – or if you know of a festival you think we should apply to - send an email including your mailing address and telephone number to us at coops[at]filmmakerscollab.[dot]org.

Boston, MA
Boston Jewish Film Festival’s Encore series
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
6 Screenings in June & July;
July 3, Thursday at 6:30pm with Jeff Crosby, President, IUE-CWA Local 201
July 6, Sunday at 2:15 pm

Filmmakers Michal Goldman and Ellen Brodsky will also be present at the screenings.
See www.mfa.org for details and tickets.

The film will be broadcast on WGBH/channel 44
Sunday, July 27 at 10:00 pm

Palo Alto and Berkeley, CA
San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
July 28, 2008 and August 3, 2008
see www.sfjff.org for details.

Philadelphia, PA
The Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival
February 9th, 2009
Venue and scheduled time TBA.

DVDs of At Home in Utopia
We’re working on a DVD. If you would like to be notified when it’s ready, send an email with your address and telephone number to us at coops[at]filmmakerscollab[dot]org

Past Screenings

Portland, Maine
Maine Jewish Film Festival
Screenings on April 1 & April 3
Panel discussion on April 4
The festival this year is exploring the Jewish Labor Experience.
See www.mjff.org for details.

Amherst, MA
Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival
Screening at 4:30 PM, April 6 at the Yiddish Book Center.
See www.pvjff.org for details.

Detroit, MI
Labor Notes April 2008 Conference
The conference runs from April 11-13; screening time TBA.
The theme of this year’s conference is “Rebuilding Labor’s Power.”
See www.labornotes.org for details.

Toronto, Ontario
Toronto Jewish Film Festival
The festival takes place in May; screening time TBA
See www.tjff.ca for details.

Boston, MA
Boston Jewish Film Festival’s Encore series
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
June 12, Thursday at 8:00 pm with The Yiddish Community Chorus of the Workmen’s Circle
June 15, Sunday at 2:15 with Matt Thall, Housing and Community Activist
June 19, Thursday at 1:00 pm with Dr. Alvin Poussaint, Psychiatrist, Media Consultant, Author
June 22, Sunday at 12:20 with Author Vivian Gornick

New Orleans, LA
U.S. Federation of Workers Co-ops
Thursday, June 19, 2008
for conference attendees only

Truro, MA
Provincetown Film Festival
Friday, June 20 at 7 pm
See www.ptownfilmfest.org for details.

Martha’s Vineyard, MA
Martha’s Vineyard Jewish Film Festival
Sunday, June 29 at 7:30 pm
See www.bjff.org for details.