How did I end up spending four years traveling across three continents to track the lives of four young Polish women as they explored their newfound Jewish roots?

In the film industry, 2011 was the year of casual sex. In January, Paramount Pictures released No Strings Attached, starring Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman. The movie documents two best friends who think that introducing physical intimacy into their relationship won’t complicate things and that feelings will not be involved, resulting in a “no strings attached” relationship.

Directed and written by the sister-brother team of Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz and based partly on their own family history, this gripping courtroom drama set in Israel traces a Moroccan Jewish woman's effort to obtain a gett, or religious divorce, after years of a loveless marriage. In Israel, there is neither civil marriage nor civil divorce; only Orthodox rabbis can legalize a union or its dissolution, which is only possible with the husband’s full consent.