“Fill the Void”, a film about the Chasidic Jewish community in Tel Aviv, by Israeli director Rama Burshtein, premiered at Venice Film Festival over the weekend.

The film was the first feature for the director, and centres on the story of 18-year-old Shira. Shira was excited about her impending marriage to a man she had only seen briefly in a supermarket, but when her sister dies in childbirth, the young woman must decide whether to marry her late sister’s husband Yochay and become a wife and step-mother, or seek independence.

Ms Burshtein, 45 was born in New York but moved to Jerusalem to study film, where she became deeply religious. "I love this world. I chose this world. I was not born to this world," the Associated Press reported her saying.
The film is one of four in the running for top “Golden Lion” prize.