Five Little Gefiltes: Yiddish Film Screening & Stop-Motion Workshop

Presented by Kvartira and

Five curious gefilte fish escape their jar and set off to explore New York City, while Mama Gefilte worries every step of the way. Dave Horowitz's much-loved picture book Five Little Gefiltes is now Gefiltlekh finf, an animated film in Yiddish produced by the award-winning press Dos Nisele based in Sweden. To celebrate its Premiere Week, the gefiltes are back in New York for an afternoon at Kvartira.

We start with a screening of the film, in Yiddish with English subtitles and set to a klezmer score by Alexander Freudenthal. Then the film's directors, Swedish animators Helene Berg and Isabella A. Johanson, and producer Sarah Schulman lead a stop-motion workshop. Working in small teams on iPads, kids learn the techniques behind the film and create their own animated short, which we screen together at the end.

No Yiddish needed. All materials provided. With only 16 spots, tickets will go fast, so grab yours soon!


Ages 6–10
$25 per child

Film trailer: https://vimeo.com/1222967025?fl=pl&fe=sh

The animators' and presenters' biographies:

Helene Berg is an artist and animator working in moving image, and co-director of Gefiltlekh finf. Her animated projections and visuals have been staged internationally, at Stockholm’s Stadsteatern, Dansens Hus and Fylkingen, at Örebro Länsteater, and at Dupont Underground in Washington, D.C. For more than fifteen years she has led animation workshops for museums, schools and arts organizations, from Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde in Stockholm to the National Art Museum in Minsk. She holds a degree in art history from Uppsala University, and lives and works in Stockholm. 

Isabella A Johanson is a film director, screenwriter and producer, and co-director of Gefiltlekh finf, in which she also voices Mama Gefilte. She wrote and directed In Georg Riedel’s Yiddishland for Swedish national television, and has produced series for the public broadcasters SVT and UR, among them Sweden, the Crisis and Me. She taught film and television production at upper-secondary level for years, and now leads animation workshops for children — most recently Animations, Yiddish, supported by the Swedish Film Institute. She lives and works outside Stockholm. 

Sarah Schulman is a publisher and cultural producer who makes new Jewish and Yiddish culture for contemporary audiences. She founded Dos Nisele, the Yiddish press behind Georg Riedel’s Yiddishland — a new canon of Yiddish songs created with one of Scandinavia’s most celebrated composers — and behind Fem små gefiltes and its animated Yiddish adaptation, Gefiltlekh finf, which she produced. She sits on the board of the Yiddish Society and helped build Jiddischklubben (The Yiddish Club), a weekly gathering where families come back to Yiddish through play. She received Sweden’s Minority Language Prize in 2025, and works between New York and Stockholm.