The Secrets

The story of an intense and complex friendship between two young women studying at a women's religious seminary in Safed, the birth place of Kabbala. Naomi, a brilliant pious girl whose father is a powerful ultra-orthodox rabbi, finds herself in a crisis when her mother dies and decides to postpone her arranged marriage to her father's prodigy, Michael. Naomi heads for Safed out of her devotion to religious study, but the other students she meets are a mixed bunch. Some of the young women like Sheine, a wisecracking fat girl, are essentially just marking time until they marry. Sigi is newly religious and tackles her studies with unsophisticated enthusiasm, while the rebellious Michelle, is fleeing some problems back home in France. The seminary is presided over by a stern seminary mistress, who desperately wants to further the cause of women's education and equality.