Jacob Burns Jewish Film Festival: The Heiresses

This recently restored gem by the great Hungarian director Márta Mészáros is a multilayered melodrama set in Budapest as the Nazi threat is rising. A young Isabelle Huppert plays Irén, a Jewish shopgirl who is befriended by Szilviaan heiress who is unable to give birth, and who pays Irén to conceive a child with her husband. Emotionally absorbing and exquisitely crafted, it is incisive study of prewar European decadence.

Jacob Burns Film Center