Directed By: Ondi Timoner

Documentary

Release Year: 2025

*There Is no Known Audio Description For This Title*

What Is It?: Shot over five years, the film focuses on two religious entities in Brooklyn, idealistically separate, but seeking to find understanding and common ground in an increasingly divided and racially tense America. The director benefits from her sister being the rabbi of a synagogue, and it is her synagogue that teams up with this historically black Antioch Baptist Church to learn from each other and grow.

What Works: There’s a lot to like here. Obviously, the film has its heart in the right place, and is focused on achieving this sense of kinship between diametrically opposed forces, both racially and religiously. However, by finding that there’s a wealth of things they share, they change their present.

Theologically speaking, there’s a lot to unpack. I’m not the right person to do that. I’m neither Jewish in faith or as an identifiable ethnicity, nor am I black, so I can’t understand that perspective from anything other than an outsider. I’m not even Baptist. I would not even classify myself as being religious, but rather spiritual. I think conformed religion is more problematic as while it brings like minded individuals together, that isn’t necessarily a good thing. Religion has been the basis for a lot of death and violence throughout history, and creating a hierarchy of being closer to God than another by your religion being “the one” often stews the kind of divisiveness that this film seeks to quell.

But, good on these two sects for making a choice to see each other and meet them where they are. this happenns for the mostt part. the members of the synagogue are often triggered, and because the director is closely connected to the rabbi, we see her working out the complexities with her group. on the other end, we don’t see that coming from the black church. This is where the film seems to ignore some of the unspoken reasons why this may be. Black people are not the villains in Jewish texts, but often the Jews are presented as such in christian faith. So, it is a lot harder for Jews to join a Christian service, especially those centered around the Resurrection of Christ. They are acutely aware of the subtext, and even though Antioch never specifically labels the Jewish people of ancient times as the murderers of Christ, the Jewish visitors still are so used to being cast in that role, it is inherently problematic.

O other hand, when Antioch travels to the synagogue, it is like this warm and welcoming experience for them, because of course it is. that’s why the film is happening.

Other than the expected, I was surprised by the overlap with the events of October 7th, which led to an opportunity to hear a rabbi react to the terrorist attack. I finally heard a correct definition of HAMAS, and in the same breath, a prayer not just for the people of Isreal, and those who were taken hostage, but also by the general Palestinian people. She even believes in a free Palestine, as a Rabbi. Go figure.

It is not a perfect piece, but a very interesting conversational piece, one to see with other people and talk about how successful they were in the end, and if there could be any other applications or use for this same thing in other capacities. Film should spark conversation, and this will do that.

Why You Might Like it: this is truly faith based, as faith is at the forefront of the discussion. It isn’t inspired by religion, it is religious, and can’t help but discuss it.

Why you Might Not Like it: I didn’t find the lack of audio description too distracting, given the structure, but I understand that from the blind/low vision perspective.

Final Thoughts: In an effort to ask the tough questions, All God’s Children explores how fundamentally differences we’re accustomed to are woven into our religious texts, and only through understanding that, can we understand each other.

fresh: 7.5/10