The film will be available for virtual screening from December 3-9, 2023.

Tickets are $12 general and $8 for NOFS members and Museum of Southern Jewish Experience members.

About the film:

Traveling in a vintage Cadillac, filmmaker Brian Bain, a third-generation Jew from New Orleans, sets out on a 4200-mile road trip through the American South. Driving through Delta flatlands, small towns in Mississippi, suburban subdivisions, Texas ranches, and sprawling sunbelt metropolises, what he uncovers is the unique and diverse history of southern Jews.

Along the way, Bain woos his future wife, herself a southern Jew, and discusses Jewish participation in the civil rights movement with Andrew Young. Shalom Y’all is peppered with interesting characters, including Zelda Millstein from Natchez, a hoop-skirted tour guide at a plantation; Leo Center, a Golden Gloves boxing champion from Savannah who learned how to box by literally fighting his way to get to synagogue; Tupelo’s Jack Cristil, Mississippi State’s football game announcer for nearly a half-century; an African American-Jewish police chief; a kosher butcher; and musician provocateurs Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys. Bain discovers a vibrant, regional culture and hundreds of years of rich history in a film that is happily flavored with both its Jewish and southern roots.

Shalom Y’all had its New York premiere at Lincoln Center, followed by screenings at dozens of film festivals around the world from Vancouver to Jerusalem (including the New Orleans Film Festival!). In addition, the film was released to high praise with television runs on Showtime’s–SundanceChannel and PBS. This fall marks the project’s 20th anniversary, and the filmmakers will be revisiting the landscape of southern Jewry and how it has evolved over the past 20 years.