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Once Upon My Mother
2025 | Not rated | 102 mins. | Drama | DCP | In French with English subtitles
“God couldn’t be everywhere, so he created mothers,” wrote Rudyard Kipling. Add the word “Jewish” before mothers, and you’ll get a taste of Once Upon My Mother, Ken Scott’s vibrant new adaptation of Roland Perez’s memoir about his childhood and coming of age with a clubfoot, and the miraculous care he received from his mother Esther, determined against everyone’s advice that Roland will lead an extraordinary life. A lively and moving period set in Paris in the world of a Sephardic family from the 1960s to the 2010s, the film tells an incredibly true story that surprisingly focuses on Roland’s obsession with the singer and actress Sylvie Vartan.
“The movie belongs to Leïla Bekhti, a young actress who truly captures the essence of this kind of over-the-top but caring matriarch…her Esther Perez truly belongs in the pantheon of on-screen Jewish mothers.” (Hannah Brown, The Jerusalem Post).
Director: Ken Scott
Writer: Ken Scott, based on the book My Mother, God, and Sylvie Vartan by Roland Perez
Stars: Leila Bakhti, Jonathan Cohen, Joséphine Japy