Product Details

• Actors: Noa Rotstein, Dalena Le, Daniel Bahr, Laura Camien, Jade Gurman-Chan
• Directors: Ela Thier
• Format: Color, NTSC, Subtitled
• Language: English, Hebrew
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Film Movement
• DVD Release Date: August 7, 2012
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B007C6LDGK
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #75,103 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

About the Director

Ela Thier s three feature film credits to date are: FOREIGN LETTERS (writer-director-producer), a dramedy about her personal immigration story, to be released in 2012. PUNCTURE (story-by, co-producer), a film starring Chris Evans (Fantastic Four, Captain America), which premiered at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival. and THE WEDDING COW (writer), which won eighteen international awards, including four Best Feature and four Audience Choice awards. Thier has written and directed over a dozen short films. Among them: A SUMMER RAIN (writer-director-producer), on which FOREIGN LETTERS is based on, which won numerous Best Short awards and screened at over 200 film festivals and venues. Prior to that she made GENTLE CYCLE ONLY (director), won Brightest Emerging Director at The View From Here Film Festival, and JUDO GIRL (writer-director-producer), produced by Fluidfilm. A prolific writer, Thier's scripts were selected four times by the Independent Film Week (formerly IFP Market). Among numerous recognitions, she was awarded a fellowship grant in screenwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), and was nominated for the White House Project Emerging Artist Award in 2010. In 2006 Thier began teaching screenwriting with a class of eight participants. Since then, as word spread, over two thousand working and aspiring filmmakers have attended her writing and directing workshops. She also teaches writing-directing seminars at the School of Visual Arts, and has played a variety of roles in her students' film projects. A partial list of credits is listed on IMDB and her reel can be viewed at ElaThier.com.

Product Description

Ellie, a 12-year-old immigrant girl from Israel, is lonely and homesick. Life brightens when she meets Thuy, a Vietnamese refugee her age. Trust slowly builds as the two teach each other about life in America. As Ellie and Thuy become inseparable, they eventually hurt and betray each other. Ellie must give up her most prized possession, in order to save their friendship. Based on the filmmaker's own experience, Foreign Letters is a story about prejudice, poverty, shame, and the power of friendship to heal us. The film features the music of iconic Israeli musician Chava Alberstein, who was the director's favorite musician when her family immigrated to the US in 1982.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Friendship And The Wonders Of America: Coming Of Age In A New Land July 20, 2012

By K. Harris HALL OF FAMETOP 10 REVIEWER

Format:DVD

"Foreign Letters" is a surprisingly simple story of friendship that really captures the way people from different backgrounds can grow so vital to one another. Although the central characters are each facing an American childhood filtered through unique immigrant experiences, the film really has such a universal appeal. Telling the tale of young Ellie, a recent transplant from Israel, and her best pal Thuy, a refugee from Vietnam, the girls initially bond because they're both outsiders in the same suburban school. Autobiographical by nature, filmmaker Ela Thier really understands how kids interact with one another. Alternating between slavish devotion to instant betrayal, it's not always an easy road with your best friend. But there is such a purity of emotion, the bonds formed can be lifelong. And indeed, that is the case here as the plot is largely taken from Thier's own life journey and she has also taken on the role of Ellie's mother in the film. The movie even ends with actual pictures and footage of the women represented by the characters in the film.

Again, the story is relatively straightforward. As Ellie (a convincing Noa Rotstein) is introduced, the movie plays initially as a slight fish-out-of-water comedy. She writes letters home to her closest confidante extolling all the beauties and oddities of her new world. Even the most mundane things seem like revelations to her wondrous young eyes. Some of these scenes are quite funny. For my taste, some aspects of her school are played too broadly but I realize that this was meant to be an interpretation through Ellie's perspective. As she befriends Thuy (played with deadpan precision by Dalena Le), she starts to acclimatize to her surroundings. Soon, the two (though vastly different in background) are embracing what it means to be young in America. Funny, sweet, and quite believable, the movie really connects with simple and identifiable situations. You don't have to be an immigrant to enjoy this film, you merely have to have been young at one point.

The 17 minute short film "A Summer Rain" is included on the "Foreign Letters" DVD. It was the basis for the feature film and also stars Rotstein as the same character. My recommendation is to actually watch the short first to get the most enjoyment out of it. If you watch it after the movie, it won't seem as fresh. Ultimately, "Foreign Letters" may lack a grand plot or major dramatic moments, but it simply doesn't need them. Its quiet power is achieved through its modest goals. Small, real, and touching in unexpected ways--I really got caught up in this friendship. About 4 1/2 stars, I'll go ahead and round up because this little story melted my usually cold dead heart. KGHarris, 7/12.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars gorgeous and rich film!! May 31, 2012

By C. O. Moed

Format:DVD

Childhood is both heartbreaking and breathtaking. With extraordinary craft and soul, not to mention massive talent, Ela Thier unfolds before us this complex world through the friendship between two "outsider" girls in 1980s Connecticut. The nuances of a classroom, a cafeteria, a walk in the forest, a dance on a roof, dinnertime in two different kitchens, and an ice skating rink filled with boys - all illuminate without one wasted gesture or world the universe these two young friends navigate.

I had not realized, until watching Foreign Letters, how the story of childhood friendship so rarely gets told unless something is being blown up. But Foreign Letters proves that the story of love between friends, unfolding without special effects, is the real action adventure.

5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing! September 14, 2012

By Michelle

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

Cuts to the heart of a lot of complicated political and social issues by showing them through the straightforward lens of a child's eye. Wonderful acting and directing. Couldn't be better. FYI - Noa Rotstein is one of the young actors... Ela Thier should be listed as the author/director of the film.