Live and Become

1984. Hundreds of thousands of Africans from 26 famine-struck countries find themselves in camps in Sudan. Initiated by Israel and the United States, a vast project (Operation Moses) is undertaken to bring the Ethiopian Jews (Falashas) to Israel. A Christian mother pushes her nine-year-old son to declare himself Jewish in order to survive.

The child arrives in the Promised Land. Officially an orphan, he is adopted by a French Sephardi family living in Tel Aviv. He grows up fearing that his secrets and lies will be discovered: he is neither Jewish nor an orphan, only black. He will discover love, Western culture and Judaism as well as racism and war in the Occupied Territories. He will become Jewish, Israeli, French and Tunisian all at once—a human tower of Babel.

Yet he will never forget his real mother, who stayed in the camp. Secretly and obstinately, he dreams of finding her again...