Acclaimed actor Liev Schrieber (RKO 281, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE) makes his directorial debut in this adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's best-selling novel about a young Jewish-American writer of the same name. Mixing equal parts black comedy and poignant drama, the film follows Jonathan as he travels to the Ukraine to solve a family secret. There he meets his barely legitimate tour guides: Alex (Eugene Hutz, member of the folk-punk band Gogol Bordello), a cosmopolitan playboy obsessed with Michael Jackson and other American icons; Alex's grandfather, a man worn down by life who seems to be losing his grip on reality; and Sammy Davis, Jr. Jr, the 'seeing eye bitch' dog who comes along for the ride. As Jonathan closes in on his goal to find the story behind the woman who saved his grandfather during the Holocaust, it becomes clear that Alex's grandfather has a dark secret of his own that needs to be, as the film suggests, illuminated.