MONTREAL — Following its Bigfoot’s Reflection and Once a Nazi, Bunbury Films is taking on another unusual subject this summer in the doc Leaving the Fold, about Hasidic Jews who want to leave their community.

Director Eric Scott (Je me souviens) first conceived of the project after encountering an organization in Israel that helps members of the Hasidim — a sect of highly religious Jews who live largely cut off from the surrounding culture — go their own way.

‘It’s a very difficult thing to do. It’s like a death in the family for the parents,’ says Scott, who is Jewish. ‘Often they perform a mourning ritual after it’s happened. You taint your family if you leave. You hurt the marriage prospects of your siblings. It burns bridges that can never be rebuilt.’

Bunbury’s Frederic Bohbot, who is also Jewish, took on the project because he was curious. ‘Even as Jews we know little about them. Like everyone else, we want to know more about this closed world,’ he says.

Bohbot coproduced the $300,000 doc with his longtime collaborator Evan Beloff. It is set to air on Radio-Canada next spring and will likely be broadcast in English, as well.

‘The film’s strongest characters speak English. So once the rough cut is complete we’ll shop it around.’ The project was funded principally by Telefilm Canada and SRC. It should wrap up production by the end of August.