ABOUT THE FILM:

When bestselling Soviet-Jewish novelist Gary Shteyngart wrote about his botched circumcision, he sparked a viral debate about the age-old practice. In The Guy Who Got Cut Wrong, Shteyngart delves deeper into the trauma he suffered at age seven, shortly after his family’s arrival in America.

On the surface, the film is about surgery gone wrong. But on a more profound level it’s about the immigrant experience, competing ideas of manliness, the limits of the redemptive power of fame, and coming to terms with betrayals by parents, religion, and country. Shteyngart invites us upstate on walks by the Hudson, where he spends hours dreaming up book ideas, and on his New York City adventures. Remarkably unvanquished by the ordeal he calls “shlong-gate,” Shteyngart's singular tragic-comic voice prevails. "This country broke my penis," he says in the film, "but it couldn't break my spirit."

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER:

Dana Ben-Ari is a NYC-based filmmaker who often explores themes of bodily autonomy and identity in her work, with the goal of rendering the invisible visible. Ben-Ari is the director of the feature documentary Breastmilk, which explores female bodies and the challenges of breastfeeding. She is the co-creator of the art exhibit "Please Touch: Body Boundaries." In The Guy Who Got Cut Wrong, Ben-Ari’s second film, she extends the conversation to include male bodies and vulnerabilities.