At 16, Anna Wexler ran away from home and the orthodox Jewish religion she was growing up under. She found freedom in New York’s street scene, doing drugs and having sex with others like her. But some of her friends went away to study in Israel, coming back changed and ready to take up orthodox life again. Disappointed, astonished and even shocked, Anna decided to make a documentary that follows three very different teenagers in Israel, from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, to try and understand this phenomenon.

The first images are old home movies stolen by Anna Wexler from her own past within an orthodox Jewish family. The strength of the documentary Unorthodox is that it never loses this intimate point of view. The narration of the director, who is unquestionably the heart of the film, keeps the audience close as she takes it through ellipses, drama, laughter and even death – while she speaks with astonishing sincerity about the events that motivated her to make the movie. Unorthodox faces polemic issues without becoming a documentary with an agenda, as Wexler underscores the fact that it is about different opinions, experiences and, quite simply, human beings.