PRESS FOR MINYAN

Hollywood Reporter: 'Minyan': Film Review | Berlin 2020 Feb 22, 2020 by David Rooney
”Documentary maker Eric Steel interweaves multiple threads with admirable skill and balance in his engrossing narrative feature debut, Minyan...He also benefits from strong collaborations with composers David Krakauer and Kathleen Tagg, whose score brings rich cultural specificity, and with accomplished cinematographer Ole Bratt Birkeland (Judy), who shoots the film in wintry tones that in retrospect feel almost like black and white.”

Indiewire: Minyan’ Review: A Brighton Beach Boy Finds His Tribe in Elegant Gay Drama Feb 24, 2020 by Jude Dry
"It’s just across the street, but may as well be a world away. At least, that’s what the zany klezmer score Steel uses to weave his disparate narratives together seems to be saying. Almost every transition is eased by the kelp of a dizzying clarinet solo or lilting violin riff. It’s a neat trick, but it works."

Movable Fest: Berlin Film Fest 2020: A Community Makes a Man in “Minyan” Feb 22, 2020 by Stephen Saito
"One knows from McCann’s restless turn and the competing clarinets in David Krakauer and Kathleen Tagg’s wonderfully docile score that David has yet to reconcile who he is internally, making his unease in any number of worlds that he’s naturally been assigned a place in particularly pronounced, and while “Minyan” never strays from his perspective, the film is quite moving in presenting the dilemma facing all of the characters..."

Indiewire: 15 Must-See Films at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival  Feb 19, 2020 by David Ehrlich, Eric Kohn, Anne Thompson, Kate Erbland, Jude Dry
”Has late ’80s Brighton Beach ever been rendered so truthfully onscreen? New York’s Russian immigrant enclave by the sea is ripe with texture in “Minyan,” the narrative debut of documentarian Eric Steele. There are a lot of moving parts in “Minyan,” glued together by a hauntingly frenetic klezmer score, but it ensures the film never courts cliche.”

Screen Daily: ‘Minyan’: Berlin Review 23 Feb 2020 by Wendy Ide
”Gentle rhythms and motifs are woven into the narrative: the covert draining and refilling of the ‘best’ vodka; the inspiring literature class; the score, klezmer infused jazz which anchors David’s story to the traditions of his family.”

The Arts STL: NewFest 2020 | Report 6 October 22, 2020 By Sarah Boslaugh
”Minyan is a leisurely film, running almost two hours, but it’s never boring thanks to the strength of the performances, the cinematography by Ole Bratt Birkeland, and especially the klezmer-inflected score by David Krakauer and Kathleen Tagg.”

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IndieWire Review
Hollywood Reporter Review