Canneseries’ ‘The Zweiflers’ Is Not About Being Jewish but About Love, Legacy, Finding Your Own Identity: ‘I Wanted to Do A Jewish ‘Sopranos’!’

variety.com:

Annika Pham Picked by Variety as one of the hottest shows at MipTV, ZDF Studios’ comedy drama “The ‘Zweiflers” about a colourful, dysfunctional yet loving Jewish family in contemporary Germany, had a rapturous reception April 7 at its world screening in Canneseries. “It was a profound experience to see how much [the Cannes] audience loved it, not only because of the way it was done but because of the subject matter,” said Aaron Altaras (“Unorthodox”), cast as Samuel, grandson of the patriarch Symcha Zweifler (Mike Burstyn), torn between his Jewish origins and his love for his British Caribbean girlfriend and mum-to-be (Saffron Coomber). “We were so surprised – people were laughing-out-loud,” adds Sunnyi Melles (“Triangle of Sadness”), who plays the glue in the family and Samuel’s mum Mimi. “The series is about a family across three generations, with all its problems, whatever they are.

It happens to be a Jewish family, but it could be any family and in fact in the Cannes audience, someone said: I have the same mother – although I’m not Jewish!” Hadda who was born in Frankfurt from Jewish Polish parents, Holocaust survivors, said for many years he had been obsessed with the idea to draw the portrait of a family. “My biggest influence was ‘The Sopranos’ and I always said I wanted to do a Jewish ‘Sopranos’!

The idea was to change the narrative from the victims’ perspective in Germany to a Jewish patriarch and Holocaust survivor who had lost everything – and everyone, and then came back to rebuild his life.

That was empowering for me, said Hadda who co-wrote the six-part series with his wife Sarah Hadda and Juri Sternburg. Asked how much of the Hadda family is in “The Zweiflers,” he said jokingly: “I don’t know…34.7%!