Love Gets a Room will be finally released in the US tomorrow, on June 23, 2023, in selected theatres. On June 30 it will be on VOD (video on demand). Do not miss it! 

Love Gets a Room is a masterpiece about love, art, antisemitism, bravery, generosity, and beauty. A jewel that will make you weep, laugh, sing, and cry. Written by Rodrigo Cortés & David Safier and directed by Rodrigo, the movie is set at the Warsaw ghetto in January 1942 (six months before the deportations to the Treblinka extermination camp).

Love Gets a Room includes a play inside the movie: excerpts (originally written in Polish, translated into English in the movie) of Jerzy Jurandot’s play Miłość szuka mieszkania that was performed at the Femina Theatre in the Warsaw ghetto in 1941-1942. What is fascinating is that the original play by Jurandot is preserved in his own handwriting at the Ringelblum Archive I/519, which can be found online at the Centralna Biblioteca Judaistyczna [the Central Jewish Library in Warsaw]. In the first page of the play, Jurandot writes: "wystawiona w Feminie 1941 rok" [staged at Femina year 1941], which makes it clear that the play premiered in 1941. Nevertheless, the Gazeta Żydowska of January 23, 1942 (preserved also at the Ringelblum Archive and quoted by Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak in The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City -originally written in Polish) informs in an add: 

"Teat. "Femina", Warszawa, Leszno 35 
Od piatku 16 stycznia i codziennie 
w soboty ogodz 3 i 5.30
SENSACYJNE PRZEDSTAWIENIE
... Komedia w 3- ch aktach
Miłość szuka mieszkania
Jurandot i Wesby ego
Rewelacyjus obsada ..."


["Teat. "Femina", Warsaw, Leszno 35
From Friday, January 16, and every day on Saturdays at 3pm and 5.30pm
SENSATIONAL PERFORMANCE
... Comedy in 3 acts
Miłość szuka mieszkania
Jurandot and Wesby
Sensational cast ..."]


The Gazeta Żydowska was the "official newspaper for all the ghettos in the Generalgouvernement [which] was published in Kraków and licensed and censored by the Germans. It came out twice, and from July 1941, three times a week" (Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak, p. 35). 
 
However, Holocaust survivor Mary Berg writes in her diary (originally written in Yiddish and translated into English and published in the USA as early as 1945) that the play premiered on October 29, 1941 (The Diary of Mary Berg. Growing Up in the Warsaw Ghetto): "October 29, 1941. Today I went with Romek to the opening of a play at the Femina Theater. It was a musical comedy dealing with present-day life in the ghetto, entitled Love Looks for an Apartment (...) The audience laughed heartily and spent a few pleasant hours in the comfortable theater, completely forgetting the dangers that lurk outside. The author of the play is Jurandot" (pp. 101-102). Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak follow the info done by the Gazeta Żydowska and argue that the play premiered on January 16, 1942 (pp. 566–567). The conclusion that we can take from all the unmatched information is that the play most probably premiered towards the end of 1941 (following the information given by the own Jurandot on the first page of the play, and also by the diary of Mary Berg) and that it enjoyed such a success amongst the Warsaw ghetto Jewish men and women (due to its joyful tone amidst suffering, hunger and death) that many performances at the Femina Theatre followed the premiere, at least until January 1942. In the movie Love Gets a Room we see that the actors have performed the play several times already, because the only thing that Ada (Valentina Bellè) wishes is that the public (that it, the poor Jewish people of the ghetto, cold and starving) clap at the end of the play.  

The cinematography (Rafael García) of Love Gets a Room and the music (Víctor Reyes) will take your breath away. The cast is absolutely superb: Clara Rugaard, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Henry Goodman, Anastasia Hille, Valentina Bellè, Mark Ryder, Freya Parks, Jack Roth, Magnus Krepper and our beautiful, amazing and talented Dalit Streett Tejeda as little Sarah. Bravo to all!

Love Gets a Room is a homage to the will of survival, to courage and love, and to all the Jewish victims who perished in the Holocaust. 10/10.

Love Gets a Room had a Canadian premiere two weeks ago at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, on June 9, 2023. Below, Clara and Henry singing "The Yiddish Way". 

You can read some recent reviews about Love Gets a Room at the Film Book, San Diego Jewish World, the Movie Web, Red Carpet Crash, Punch Drunk Critics, The Jewish Voice and Opinion, Overly Honest Movie Reviews, Short Redhead Reel Reviews, and the Screen Daily. You can also read, listen to and enjoy these recent interviews (in English) with director Rodrigo Cortés: Movie Web, Cinema, The Successful Screenwriter, and Deepest Dream. 

Here's the US official trailer: (BondIt Media Capital / Buffalo 8)

Antonia Tejeda Barros, Madrid, June 22, 2023