Live and Become

Director -  Radu Mihaileanu
 
2005, Hebrew, French, Amharic
France, Italy, Israel

 
Cast: Yael Abecasis, Sirak M. Sabhat , Rushdi Zem, Roni Hadar 

1984. Thousands of Africans from 26 different countries are struck by famine and flee to the camps in Soudan. Israel and the United States take the initiative of a vast action (The Moses Operation), which will bring thousands of Ethiopian Jews (Falashas) into Israel.

A Christian Ethiopian mother persuades her son to declare himself Jewish, to save him from starvation and death.
The child arrives in the holy land. Considered an orphan, the boy is adopted by a French Sephardi family who lives in Tel-Aviv. He grows up with the fear that his double secret and lie is exposed : he is neither a Jew nor an orphan, only a black boy.

The boy will discover love, Judaism, western culture but also about racial prejudice and war in the Occupied Territories. He will grow up to be Jewish-Israeli-French-Tunisian adult: a real Tower of Babel.

However, he will never forget his real mother whom he had to leave behind in the camps, and that secretly yet obstinately he dreams to find again one day…


Script: Radu Mihaileanu , Alain Michel-Blanc
D.O.P: Remy Chevrin
Editor: Ludo Troch