Synopsis

In rapidly changing New York of the 1980s, a Russian Jewish teenager wrestles with his identity, faith, and sexuality, all of which seem irreconcilable until he befriends two closeted men in his grandfather's senior housing complex. MINYAN is a tender portrait of self-discovery set in a rapidly changing 1980s New York. David is a 17-year-old yeshiva student living in Brooklyn with his Russian Jewish immigrant family: an overbearing mother and an abusive father. Though he has tender relationships with the senior citizens around him - a doting grandfather and a pair of elderly closeted Jewish men - David is stifled by the constraints of his conservative religious community. He seeks solace in James Baldwin books, nips of vodka, and eventually an East Village gay bar and the dashing bartender who works there. As David experiences a sexual and spiritual awakening, he begins to confront his intersecting identities as immigrant, Jew, and homosexual.

In rapidly changing New York of the 1980s, a Russian Jewish teenager wrestles with his identity, faith, and sexuality, all of which seem irreconcilable until he befriends two closeted men in his grandfather's senior housing complex. MINYAN is a tender portrait of self-discovery set in a rapidly changing 1980s New York. David is a 17-year-old yeshiva student living in Brooklyn with his Russian Jewish immigrant family: an overbearing mother and an abusive father. Though he has tender relationships with the senior citizens around him - a doting grandfather and a pair of elderly closeted Jewish men - David is stifled by the constraints of his conservative religious community. He seeks solace in James Baldwin books, nips of vodka, and eventually an East Village gay bar and the dashing bartender who works there. As David experiences a sexual and spiritual awakening, he begins to confront his intersecting identities as immigrant, Jew, and homosexual.