Once Upon My Mother
Massachusetts Premiere!
In this exuberant, colorful drama based on an incredible-but-true story, the matriarch of a bustling Moroccan-Jewish family living in Paris will do anything to give her youngest son the best possible life despite his physical setbacks.
Algerian French actress Leïla Bekhti (Paris, je t’aime) delivers a radiant, powerhouse turn as Esther Perez, a spirited immigrant whose world is upended when she’s told her newborn son has a severe clubfoot and will never walk. Refusing to accept such a fate, she launches a relentless—and often riotously funny—campaign: storming clinics, sparring with specialists, and invoking medical miracles and divine intervention to give her child the future he deserves.
A fiery adaptation of the best-selling autobiographical novel by French writer and radio personality Roland Perez set in the 1960s-1970s, featuring music by Sylvie Vartan (who plays herself in the film!), and cinematography by Oscar-nominated DP Guillaume Schiffman (The Artist), Once Upon My Mother emerges is a joyous, universal celebration of resilience, immigrant grit, and the fierce, complicated power of a mother’s love.
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