Grandpa Speak To Me In Russian centres on my paternal grandfather Kalman Sol- omon Lentin who arrived in Ireland as a boy of fourteen in the mid 1890s from the small Lithuanian shtetl(Jewish Village) of Zhidik. One of thousands who left a repressive Russian regime, one of the few who came to Ireland.

What brought him here? I can only conjecture. However, he came and stayed, joining the ranks of the Jewish peddlers travelling the roads of Ireland, selling household items on the ‘weekly system’. Their best seller… Holy pictures!

Kalman never saw his parents again. Who were they? He never spoke of them, or of life in Zhidik. Is Lentin really my family name? What happens to a boy of fourteen whose life is fractured like this? What effect does exile have on a young man cut off from a very specific way of life and people, forever? Does it linger for generations?

In 1899 he married. Had seven children and prospered.

For my Grandfather belonging was of no importance. A taciturn man, he appeared purely to exist, probably deciding that Ireland was as good a place as any to be left alone, earn a living, have a family. He remained what he was… a Litvak (a Lithuanian Jew).

Kalman’s story intertwines with mine, an involved Irish-Jew, yet always conscious of the hyphen, the insider-outsider. Who am I if not a reflection of my past? - Director’s statement

This film will be screened with David Marcus: A Conversation With Dermot Bolger