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Live and Become

Directed by: Radu Mihaileanu
140 Minutes, 2005, Drama

The year is 1984, and thousands of Africans from 26 different countries are struck by famine and flee to camps in Sudan. Israel and the United States begin a joint initiative to airlift thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Desperate to save her son from starvation and death, a Christian Ethiopian mother convinces her son to declare himself Jewish. Considered an orphan, the boy is adopted by a French Sephardi family that lives in Tel-Aviv. He grows up with the fear that his secrets and lies will be exposed: he is neither a Jew nor an orphan—only a little boy far from home.

For more information visit the Israel Film Center

Credits

Director: Radu Mihaileanu

Producer: Marco Chimenz

Producer: Denis Carot

Producer: Radu Mihaileanu

Producer: Marek Rozenbaum

Producer: Marie Masmonteil

Cast: Yaël Abecassis

Cast: Moshe Agazai

Cast: Moshe Abeba

Cast: Roschdy Zem

Cast: Sirak M. Sabahat

Cast: Yitzhak Edgar

Written By: Radu Mihaileanu

Distributor: Menemsha Films

Awards

“Live and Become” exerts a tidal pull. It makes you feel the weight of history, of populations on the move in a restless multicultural world. It makes you reconsider cultural assimilation, a process that may seem to be complete but whose underlying conflicts may never be fully resolved. -

Stephen Holden, The New York Times

"Brave, moving and compassionate,

Live and Become deals boldly, yet sensitively, with issues crucial to our times." -

Philip French, The Observer