Air travel from a shoe’s view
Israeli American filmmaker’s narrative comedy screens in Jersey City
If you pay careful attention, you’ll see a travel poster for the Israeli city of Holon hanging on the wall behind the airport security desk in Chen Drachman’s new short film, “But I’m a Shoe.”
That’s the sole hint — no pun intended — of Israeliness in this 12-minute narrative comedy about travel anxiety.
“My little Israeli Easter egg in the film is the destination posters in the airport,” Ms. Drachman said. “One of them is Tokyo, because we needed a normal one; one is Waco, which is where we filmed; and one of them is Holon, which is my hometown.”
There is barely even a hint of Israel in the accent of the 38-year-old actress, filmmaker, and director. Ms. Drachman was a film and TV major in Holon’s Eilon High School. She left in 2013 to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and has lived in New York ever since.
Holon, south of Tel Aviv, was in the news on June 19 when 65 people were injured in an Iranian missile barrage. Normally, this quiet bedroom community is known for its child-focused culture — it’s the home of the Israel Children’s Museum and a series of “story parks” themed to favorite children’s books — and art institutions, including the Design Museum, Cartoon Museum, and Digital Art Museum.
Ms. Drachman tries to visit her family there at least once a year, but now almost nobody is flying in either direction.
And that leads us back to the theme of “But I’m a Shoe,” scheduled to screen on June 28, during the 11 a.m. to noon time slot at the Golden Door International Film Festival at the Nimbus Arts Center in Jersey City from June 26-28.
Ms. Drachman said the idea came to her when she was on the festival circuit in 2022 for her debut film, “The Book of Ruth.” This Holocaust-related short drama starring Tovah Feldshuh was featured in 40-plus festivals and won multiple awards.
After flying around the country attending back-to-back festivals and award events, Ms. Drachman was exhausted. “In my state of sleep-deprived delirium, I was conversing with myself,” she recalled.
She dubbed the two voices in her inner dialogue “Chen A” and “Chen B.”
“Chen A said, ‘I just do not have the energy to deal with air travel right now. I wish I could turn myself into a small object for the duration of the flight.’
“And Chen B was like, ‘What would you turn yourself into if you could?’
“Chen A said, ‘I think I would turn myself into a shoe — I’d split my consciousness between two shoes.’
“Chen B said, ‘Oh yeah! The TSA officer would be like, ‘Please take off your shoes,’ and I would be like, ‘But I am a shoe!’
“A few days after I got home, I wrote it down and started to think practically how I might do it,” Ms. Drachman concluded.
“But I’m a Shoe” has elements of live action — Ms. Drachman is in the cast, as she was in “The Book of Ruth” — but it is mostly a work of animation. The lead role is voiced by Ms. Drachman’s friend Janet Varney, best known as the voice of Korra in the Nickelodeon animated television series “The Legend of Korra.”
The cast also includes Broadway actors Housso Semon (“Suffs”) and Alexander Ferguson (“Hamilton”); Ms. Drachman has been collaborating with them since their early creative years in New York.
“But I’m a Shoe” was made before October 7, 2023. Since then, many Jewish, and especially Israeli, filmmakers have reported an atmosphere of blatant industry bias. “I have experienced it myself,” Ms. Drachman said. “I think it really depends on how Jewish the work is.”
She had received a “shopping agreement” — that’s when a producer is granted the exclusive right to pitch a film to potential financiers for a limited time — for a “very Jewish” romantic comedy set during Chanukah. Despite early enthusiasm for the project among her non-Jewish contacts, when the agreement expired, Ms. Drachman was told there was no interest in the film.
“Maybe that’s true,” she said. “But based on the excitement of all the people involved and their connections, and the fact that there was the Writers Guild strike and then the war started in Israel, my educated guess is that it has to do with the fact that it’s so Jewish — it even has an Israeli character in it — and the timing worked against us.”
She is also finding that film festival organizers are “asking a lot of demographic-based questions, and nowadays you don’t know what to answer if you’re a Jewish person. They ask about ethnicities. I don’t know if I should put in my bio that I’m an Israeli American. I have to change my bio based on whom I reach out to.
“Even that thought process, of worrying that people will know you’re Israeli, which is part of my identity, is already not normal and not okay,” she said.
Though she’d still like to do the Chanukah film, her new, lighthearted short has a more universal theme. Who in the world wouldn’t want to find some magical way to make air travel less stressful?
The Jersey City screening is on Saturday morning, so people who keep Shabbat will not have a chance to see “But I’m a Shoe.” And it won’t be available online for months or maybe a year, until it finishes making the film festival rounds.
Having gotten a press preview, I’ll just reveal a tiny spoiler: Being a shoe doesn’t, in the end, make the trip any easier, but it’s fun to watch the unexpected snags that an object experiences along the way.
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