original title:
Va, vis et deviens
italian title:
Va e vivrai
directed by:
screenplay:
Radu Mihaileanu, in collaboration with: Alain-Michel Blanc
cinematography:
editing:
set design:
producer:
production:
Cattleya, Elzevir Films (Paris), Oï, Oï, Oï Productions (Paris), Transfax Films Productions (Israele), K2 Films (Belgium)
distribution:
world sales:
country:
France/Belgium/Israel/Italy
year:
2005
film run:
140'
format:
35mm - colour
release date:
04/11/2005
festivals & awards:
With Israeli and U.S. assistance, from November 20, 1984, to January 4, 1985, a mass exodus bringing thousands of Ethiopian Jews to the Promised Land is organized. One mother forces her young son to join this mass in order to save him from famine and death, even though neither he nor his mother is a descendant of the ancient tribes of Israel.
Nevertheless, having managed to pass himself off as an orphan, the boy is transferred to Israel, where he is adopted by a French, Sephardic family living in Tel Aviv.
There he grows up with the constant fear that someone will uncover his secrets: that he is neither Jewish nor an orphan -- to others, just black.
Through the years he will come to know love, Judaism and Western Culture as well as racism and the war in the Occupied Territories. He will become many things -- Jewish, Israeli, French -- but will never forget his real mother and true identity: an Ethiopian who escaped death.