Tickling Leo is a 2009 independent

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

about three generations of a Jewish family whose silence about their past has kept them apart. The film was directed by Jeremy Davidson, and stars

Lawrence Pressman Lawrence Pressman (born David M. Pressman; July 10, 1939) is an American actor, probably best known for roles on ''Doogie Howser, M.D.'', ''Ladies' Man'', a recurring role on '' Profiler'', the title character on ''Mulligan's Stew'' and as a f ...

, Daniel Sauli,

Annie Parisse Anne Marie Cancelmi (born July 31, 1975), known professionally as Annie Parisse, is an American actress. She portrayed Alexandra Borgia on the drama series '' Law & Order''. Parisse has also starred as Julia Snyder on the soap opera ''As the W ...

Eli Wallach Eli Herschel Wallach (; December 7, 1915 – June 24, 2014) was an American film, television, and stage actor from New York City. From his 1945 Broadway debut to his last film appearance, Wallach's entertainment career spanned 65 years. Origina ...

Ronald Guttman Ronald Guttman (born 12 August 1952) is a Belgian actor, theatrical producer and film producer. Career Guttman was born in Uccle. He started appearing in French language productions in Europe in 1975, appearing in his first English-language film ...

and

Victoria Clark Victoria Clark (born October 10, 1959) is an American actress, musical theatre singer and director. Clark has performed in numerous Broadway musicals and in other theatre, film and television works. Her soprano voice can also be heard on innume ...

Plot

When Zak and his girlfriend Delphina visit his estranged father in the Catskills, they find him suffering from dementia and inadvertently uncover a dark family secret from World War II: an impossible sacrifice Zak's grandfather (Eli Wallach) made to join Rudolph Kasztner's controversial

freedom train Two national Freedom Trains have toured the United States: the 1947–49 special exhibit Freedom Train and the 1975–76 American Freedom Train which celebrated the United States Bicentennial. Each train had its own special red, white and blue p ...

out of Hungary.

Cast

as Warren Pikler *Daniel Sauli as Zak Pikler *

as Delphina Adams *Sarah Wikenczy as Yuth Mother *Sebastian Wikenczy Thomsen as Child *Jonathan Valackas as Reuvan Ben Amir *Ed Setraklan as Oscar Szoras * Gabor Szucs as Oscar's Grandson *Orsoja Simon as Woman in Bar *Alexander Grech III as Bartender *Jack as Yorrie *Grey Rabbit Puett as Young Warren *

as Robert Pikler *

as Madeline Pikler *Lara Apponyi as Rivka Pikler *

Bern Cohen Bern Cohen (New York City, 1949)Mandy Actors
is an American actor and educator. He spent many years in the New ...

as Yosef Gottlieb

Release

''Tickling Leo'' screened at the

Stony Brook Film Festival The Stony Brook Film Festival, produced by Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook University, presents a program of new, independent films every summer since 1996. Features and short films from the U.S. and around the world are screened ove ...

on July 25, 2009 and then opened in Manhattan, Queens and on Long Island Theaters on September 4, 2009 with a simultaneous DVD release. The film continued on to play to audiences in NorthEast, Florida and California.

Critical reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

the film has a score of 33% based on reviews from 15 critics, with an

average rating In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...

of 4.5/10.

Awards

*2009 Jury Award for Best Feature- 2009 Stony Brook Film Festival

References

External links

* * 2009 drama films 2009 films American drama films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films {{2000s-drama-film-stub