A winner of three awards at last year’s Berlin Film Festival, Radu Mihaileanu’s loosely autobiographical Live and Become takes a rare view of the Israeli experience. The film opens in the mid-1980s, when Operation Moses was working to transfer persecuted Ethiopian Jews to safer environments. A widowed Christian mother sees a chance for a better life for her son and hands him over to a Jewish friend. The boy, re-named Schlomo, is forced to adopt a personality and ethnicity he knows nothing about. As he grows older, Schlomo feels alienated as he is increasingly torn between the old existence he barely knew and the new one he cannot fully embrace. After living a lie throughout his teenage years, he sets out to find his birth mother on a quest that will show him who he is in more ways than one.

Romanian-born Radu Mihaileanu, 48, emigrated to France in 1980 to escape political oppression. He has been active in European cinema for more than twenty years, splitting time between assistant directorial assignments and helming his own movies. His films, including 1998’s Train of Life and 1993’s Betrayal, have received awards at numerous international film fests. Live and Become was nominated for three French César awards in 2005, including a win for Mihaileanu’s screenplay.

Producers: Denis Carot, Marie Masmonteil, Radu Mihaileanu, Marek Rozenbaum, Itai Tamir Screenwriters: Alain-Michel Blanc, Radu Mihaileanu Cinematographer: Rémy Chevrin Editors: Catherine Le Mignant-Labye, Ludo Troch Music: Armand Amar Cast: Yäel Abbecassis, Roschdy Zem, Moshe Agazi, Moshe Abebe, Sirak M. Sabahat