Reboot Studios: Providing Funding and Creative Support for Fresh and Imaginative Film, Multimedia and Arts Projects.

Update: The Anne Frank Gift Shop, the first film project funded and produced by Reboot Studios has been shortlisted for an Oscar in the Live Action Short Film category. The film is a dark comedy from author and journalist Mickey Rapkin about antisemitism that sparks a debate about collective trauma, the Holocaust—and tote bags. Earlier this year, Reboot Studios joined the producing team for the Broadway premiere of Just For Us, the award-winning one man show from comedian Alex Edelman, described by the New York Times as a singular theatrical experience exploring identity and our collective capacity for empathy with belly laugh humor. Read about it in Deadline here.

Reboot Studios’ current and upcoming slate from celebrated Jewish artists includes: 

The Boring Stuff – From Alysia Reiner (Ms. Marvel, Orange is the New Black) and Shaina Feinberg (The Babymooners) this comedy series humorously tackles the quest for Tikkun Olam, or healing the world through good deeds, amidst a backdrop of global turmoil and personal challenges.

Akiva and Salim – From Sarah Solemani (Ridley Road) a film about Akiva, a middle-aged Iranian Jewish man from London, who, grappling with personal losses, decides to foster a young Lebanese boy named Salim, showcasing Sephardic Jewish practices, underlying values of social justice and challenging stereotypes about Middle Eastern men and boys.

Israel Therapy – From Libby Lenkinski (VP for Public Engagement, New Israel Fund) and produced by The Forward and Reboot, this podcast helps guests sort through their complicated feelings about Israel/Palestine.

We’ve Been Here Before – From Emmy Award winning director Jacob Kornbluth this short documentary features international peace advocate Eric K. Ward and his confrontations with the white nationalists movements and its intersections with the punk scene.

Rabbi Rex – From transmasculine artist and Sephardic Jew Marval Rechsteiner, this documentary follows his spiritual journey to become a Rabbi amid rising anti-semitism and transphobia.

Untitled Dramatic Series – From producer Naz Haider, this dramatic series is about the history of Jews in Bollywood. 

The first round of project funding in 2022 included:

The Anne Frank Gift Shop from author and journalist Mickey Rapkin (Pitch Perfect, Theater Geek), this short about a Gen Z design firm pitching their new take on the gift shop at The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, sparks a darkly comic debate about collective trauma, the Holocaust and tote bags. It premiered this summer at festivals around the United States and Canada.

The Amtlai Tapes – From artist, activist and award-winning creator Joey Soloway (Transparent), this podcast explores the mysterious story of Amtlai, mother to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, who was written out of history.

Kitchen Radio hosted by Regine Basha (Tuning Baghdad) and Nathalie Basha (The Travel Muse). The podcast explores the Jewish culture of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region for intergenerational stories of community life and ritual practices with guests who are part of a rising renaissance of creative food projects exploring their oft-overlooked Jewish history and heritage.

Just The Tip from actress/writer/comedian/director Jessie Kahnweiler (The Skinny). The documentary short explores male circumcision from a comedic feminist Jewish perspective.

The Borscht Belt Pop Up Museum & Arts Festival – From New York Times reporter and filmmaker Andrew Jacobs, The Borscht Belt Pop Up Museum is a dynamic, multimedia project that will illuminate and explore the golden age of the Jewish Catskills era and its outsize impact on mainstream American culture. Find out more here and find out about the Borscht Belt Fest held in 2023.

Boom – From #1 New York Times best-selling author (Go The Fuck To Sleep), cultural critic and humorist Adam Mansbach, this feature screenplay (based on his memoir in verse, I Had A Brother Once), tells the story of a rapper’s evolving relationship to his Judaism on the first anniversary of his brother’s suicide.

Sammy Cohen’s Big Day – From Black/biracial Jewish queer non-binary playwright and screenwriter Benji Kahn, who grew up as a total outsider in an all-white family, this YA novel in journal form relays the innermost thoughts, feelings, and adventures of Sammy Cohen, a young Jewish, biracial, non-binary queer kid.

Tribe – From Emmy Award®-winning writer/producer Noam Dromi (Dolphin Tale 1 & 2, The Walking Dead: Red Machete) and Toronto Metropolitan University filmmaking professor and screenwriter Lia Langworthy, this is a scripted TV series inspired by true events about an HBCU in Jim Crow-era Baltimore that sponsors a Jewish professor on the verge of being deported back to Nazi Germany and the relationship he forges with the college’s female African American President as they transform the school and its students.

Untitled Lacey Schwartz Delgado project – From award-winning writer, director, producer, Lacey Schwartz Delgado (Little White Lie), this project takes a comprehensive look at how the Jewish and Black communities each came to be such iconic American communities and how anti-semitism and racism have intersected in America and beyond.

Miss Flamingo (Working Title) – From Emmy®-nominated producer and creative director Melissa Eccles, this scripted series explores the beginnings of Las Vegas, the Jewish mafia families building an oasis in the desert and the juxtaposition of Jewish life and organized crime under the same roof. All through the lens of her then sixteen year-old grandmother.

Untitled B-Mitzvah Project – From Grammy and Emmy-winning Broadway actor and producer Adam Kantor, and co-produced by Charly Jaffe, this laugh-out-loud podcast features our favorite Jewish celebrities reliving the high-pressure, hotbox of a pubescent dumpster-fire known as their B Mitzvah.

Jews Without Money – From Davy Rothbart, bestselling author, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, creator of Found Magazine and journalist, this narrative series is sparked by storylines and uniquely indelible figures from Michael Gold’s acclaimed, bestselling 1930 autobiographical novel, which documents life in the tenement ghettos of New York’s Lower East Side, where immigrant Jews landed upon arriving from Eastern Europe.

Fania in the Forest – From award-winning LA-based screenwriter, playwright, and producer Lisa Kenner Grissom, this fictional, limited TV series inspired by true events explores the story of Fania, an outspoken Jewish tomboy with big dreams who narrowly escapes the Vilna ghetto and joins a partisan brigade of male resistance fighters in the surrounding forest. Her commitment to disrupt the Nazi war machine and seek revenge is complicated by her personal mission to find and rescue members of her dispersed family.

Origin Story – From TV, film and stage actor and writer William DeMeritt, this one man play explores the themes of multiculturalism, belonging (or the lack thereof), and grief and loss through the lens of a young(ish) Blewish (Black & Jewish) man growing up in NYC.

Shanda –  From New York Times bestselling author Jillian Lauren this historical crime drama series set in 1919, Buenos Aires, is about a young girl from a Russian shtetl who’ discovers a new life in the Jewish criminal underworld with a network of gangs and corrupt officials trafficking a steady stream of girls, guns, and narcotics through streets equal parts grit and glitter.

Zamosc: A Love Story of Memory and Migration – From Los Angeles-based journalist and professor Daniela Gerson, this book is about Ukrainian Refugees, famly, and romance as Gerson and her partner explore a shared past that went back generations to a Polish town called Zamosc. This reported memoir—part gripping historical narrative, part travelogue investigation— traces the origins of their love story through eight countries, mass and very personal murders, fabricated identities, and transforming social norms.

Heimish: Jewish Wisdom for Happy, Hearty, and Resilient Living – From community builder Lauren Hoffman, this pop-anthropology non-fiction book, with Jewish rituals, traditions and aesthetics will have broad application for designing a happy and meaningful life and community. The book posits that Heimish is the next Hygge: a set of lifestyle and aesthetic choices that account for the unusual resiliency and connectedness of Jewish communities all over the world.