36 THE QUEENS COURIER • APRIL 8, 2021 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Paperback screenplay explores Queens’ Bukarian Jewish community
BY TAMMY SCILEPPI
editorial@qns.com
@QNS
People everywhere have a basic
need for connection and community.
Th at desire has helped create a
global mosaic of diverse communities
across New York City, and
especially here in Queens.
A new screenplay published as
a paperback – which looks at a
movie before it becomes a movie
– explores the close-knit immigrant
community of Bukharian
Jews, who live and raise their
families in the “World’s Borough.”
Author/fi lmmaker Vilan Trub,
a Forest Hills-born and raised,
fi rst-generation American son of
Russian immigrant parents, had
his Bukharian neighbors in mind
when he decided to write “Eddie,
Al and Fabian.” He said the book
provided an opportunity to
shed light on these folks from
Uzbekistan and show his readers
“how a community undergoes
changes from one immigrant
generation to another.”
Th e story unfolds against the
backdrop of charming Forest
Hills, a leafy enclave that seems
removed from Gotham yet conveniently
close to all the action.
Th ere you’ll fi nd a mix of eyecatching
homes, especially in
the European-inspired beauty
of Forest Hills Gardens, along
with prewar and modern buildings
scattered throughout the
neighborhood. And still-bustling
(despite the pandemic) Austin
Street is where friends oft en like
to meet for lunch or dinner and
go shopping.
A bit farther away from the
boutiques and Manhattan-like
restaurants, is another popular
shopping area that runs through
Forest Hills’ Russian community.
You’ll experience a diff erent vibe
when shopping for great deals
on 108th Street, which off ers
authentic delicacies from the old
country.
One immigrant community is
replaced by another. Th e new settlers
are Jews from Uzbekistan.
Eddie and his brothers are
Bukharian and the fi rst members
of their family born in America.
Eddie, a recent college graduate;
Al, a workaholic for a corrupt law
fi rm; and Fabian, the most settled
of the three, but with the least settled
lifestyle. Follow their journey
as they try to succeed and deal
with the pressure of high expectations
in the land of opportunity.
“I didn’t originally intend to
publish the screenplay as a book.
I’m a fi lmmaker and am always
writing scripts,” said Trub, who’s
part of the IMDb generation
of fi lmmakers. “Some are written
with the defi nite intention
of being the next fi lmed project,
and some are written with the
expectation that the project will
be developed further on down
the line. Th is story started as the
former, then grew and became
the latter, then became something
else entirely.”
“A screenplay is only one step
in the fi lmmaking process,” he
added. “It is intended as a blueprint
for how to tell a visual story
and is not meant as a standalone
piece. Th is book is a look
at a movie before actors off er
their input, locations dictate how
a scene will be blocked, and all
the other factors that infl uence
how the fi nal production looks.”
What is that unique
community like?
“Th ere’s always that confl ict
between old culture and assimilation.
Th e reality is the American
culture is just bits and pieces of
everything that doesn’t get totally
shaken off aft er several generations,”
Trub told QNS. “We eat
pizza, drink at Irish pubs, so on
and so forth to the point where
we don’t even know the origin of
what defi nes us most.”
Th e author said he very much
wanted to showcase a modern
Jewish immigrant community
because people always think of
the early 20th century Lower East
Side immigrants.
“Jews are seen as established
in this country, but the reality is
that 108th Street is a workingclass
place,” Trub said. “While
there are the famous mansions in
Forest Hills, the amount of people
that live in those handful of
mansions are an extreme minority
compared to the ones that
populate the six-story red brick
buildings,” he noted.
The backstory
“I’m not Bukharian. My family
is a part of the ‘70s class of immigration
from the former Soviet
Union,” Trub explained. “I didn’t
have any brothers, only a sister.
Th e friends that I had since
childhood became like brothers.
It became an important concept
for us to feel about someone as if
they’re your blood brother.”
In the beginning of his script,
the author — whose stories center
around the types of people
and problems that defi ne the outskirts
of a big city — describes his
neighborhood’s history, and his
family is right there in the middle
of that. He saw fi rsthand, confl
icts between those two immigrant
groups.
“Like Mia says in the script,
‘everyone craps on everyone.’
It didn’t matter that both immigrant
groups are Jews escaping
religious persecution and both
groups speak the same language,”
Trub said. “Th ere’s something
very ‘high school’ about it. I don’t
want to make it sound as if it’s
the Jets and the Sharks. Th ere
was no violence because of it and
everyone more or less got along.
It’s just a culture’s prerogative to
look down on another culture
and every culture is guilty of it.”
He said part of what the story
is also about is letting go of your
elders’ baggage and not blindly
taking in every lesson.
“Mama isn’t happy but feels
confi dent that she knows best
and needs to pass her knowledge
down to her sons.”
What are some highlights?
“Some of the most fun I had
was writing about the characters
outside of the family, like Crazy
Slava or Danny Gouda. No matter
where you are in NYC, you’re
always going to be in a far more
diverse location than anywhere
else on Earth, so it’s great to see
how diff erent people and cultures
interact with each other,” Trub
said. “Even the negative stuff is
great because it’s only possible
because of America and NYC.”
When you read the book, you’ll
likely enjoy the graduation party
scene. It seems that so much of
this community, and others like
it, is about family celebrations
and parties in small apartments,
where a folding table in the living
room is always piled high with
lots of home-cooked dishes.
“It gives me an opportunity
to show the whole family and
the diff erent generations, grandpa
and the uncles,” Trub shared.
“Everyone has their own opinion,
their own problems, and
their own ambitions, successes
and failures. For that evening
though, they just eat good
food and get drunk. Th en blam!
Everyone fi nds out Mama lost
her job … no money; Eddie’s student
loans; and where will they
all stay? Th ere’s always going to
be some problem or some tragedy
though, no?”
Trub recalled that as he was
writing the script, it kept growing
in scope and he knew he
wouldn’t be able to fi lm it in the
near future. Th e scale was just
too epic.
“Even though it’s a movie about
three brothers, it’s a story that
you need three hours to tell and a
very long shooting schedule, etc.,”
he said. “I actually see this as if
Tennessee Williams wrote about
108th Street. It also becomes a
great way to introduce a nonfi
lmmaking audience to reading
a screenplay.”
“For many fi lmmakers, there’s
the desire to create a personal
fi lm, tell a personal story.
What does that actually mean?
It’s diffi cult to say because “Th e
Godfather” is a big-budget
Hollywood epic, yet the DNA
of that movie is intrinsically tied
to Francis Ford Coppola and his
own understanding of America
through the lens of a family with
no roots in the country,” Trub
added.
According to the author, diversity
is an experiment and evolution
has its growing pains.
“It also lets me pull from certain
real-life stories. Th at’s how
some characters or scenes or
even single lines get put together,”
he said. “Someone once said
something or did something and
it would work well in this spot
right here.”
Take a funny true story about
someone getting an Iguana and it
falling off his shoulder as he went
to the corner store. Someone
from the neighborhood tells you
a story about what happened to
someone else, etc. “One brother
tells another brother a story
about someone on 99th Street.
We get to be in that room and
hear the story too … It’s neighborhood
gossip and it’s how the
neighborhood gets to be the
main character in the movie,”
Trub explained. “Th is is a story
about 108th Street.”
Vilan Trub wrote and directed
“Th e Dirty Kind,” a no-budget
crime fi lm that attracted
Hollywood icon Michael Madsen
(“Reservoir Dogs,” “Kill Bill”) to
sign on as executive producer
and champion the movie.
“Eddie, Al and Fabian” is now
available on Amazon.
Courtesy of Trub Film Co.
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