Praying with Lior

Asia Pacific Premiere

Watching a 90 minute film about the life of a Jewish teen afflicted with Down syndrome may sound bleak but producer-director Ilana Trachtman has created a captivating and uplifting true-life story. If you can watch Praying with Lior without being moved, it’s time for an emotional check-up.

Lior Liebling, also called "the little rebbe", has Down syndrome. The son of two rabbis, Lior is highly functional, extroverted and affectionate. He has spent his entire life praying with utter abandon, learnt from his mother, Rabbi Devora Bartnoff, who succumbed to breast cancer in 1997.

Is he a "spiritual genius" or simply the vessel that contains everyone’s unfulfilled wishes and expectations? While everyone agrees Lior is closer to God, he’s also a burden, a best friend, an inspiration, and an embarrassment. There is revealing testimony from his father, stepmother, two older siblings and younger sister, who can’t hide her annoyance and jealousy regarding the attention being heaped on her brother. Everyone has something insightful to say about Lior especially as he approaches his bar mitzvah.

The movie poses difficult questions such as what is "disability" and who really talks to God? Told with intimacy and humour, Praying with Lior is a story that bores deep into your soul. At the very least, it makes you believe you have one, even if it may not be as luminous as Lior’s. That’s a pretty good definition of a spiritual experience.