Sephardic Spotlight + Reception
Filmed over 30 years, director Caroline Kaye’s love letter to Sephardic culture was inspired by the story her nona (grandmother in Ladino) related about her 1943 exodus from her hometown of Kavala, Greece, just one month before Bulgarian soldiers rounded up the Jews, sending them to their deaths. Ironically, Kaye discovers that the real story was not that simple.
Built around generations of family celebrations and storytelling, LEFT LANE STRAIGHT cinematically probes a Sephardic family’s history impacted by the Ottoman Empire in the 1930s and the life-or-death tensions of Bulgarian- and German-occupied Greece in the 1940s. Digging through the family lore of escape and heroism generates unexpected challenges and tensions—leading Kaye to uncover the way they survived WWII by any means necessary before immigrating to the US. Featuring archival 8mm and video footage of the Alhanati family taken over 80 years, her discoveries are supported by archival research and scholars (including UW professor Devin Naar).
LEFT LANE STRAIGHT succeeds as a remarkable document of a family’s transformative journey through turbulent history and shines a light on the unique and often underrepresented history of Sephardic Greek Jews in the Holocaust.
Director Bio: View on IMDB
Caroline Kaye spent the first half of her career as a journalist profiling inspiring women, starting at “Good Housekeeping” magazine and writing for “Teen People” and Salon.com before becoming a contributing editor at “More Magazine.” Kaye concentrated on Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at Oberlin College, where she combined her focus on Balkan Jewry with her family’s innermost stories.
Guests: Director/producer Caroline Kaye, producer Deana Morenoff, writer Warren Etheredge, subject Devin Naar
Sponsor: Donna Benaroya, The Rind Family in memory of Bernice Rind (z”l)
Community Sponsor: Samis Foundation, Seattle Sephardic Network, UW Sephardic Studies
