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Jewish identity explored in a tale of love among the etrogs

For Stéphane Freiss, the writer and director of this new French film, this was a deeply personal project

October 13, 2022 09:16
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6 min read

Succot-themed films are few and far between, but this year we have one to look forward to. Where Life Begins is a moving, thought-provoking drama set on an etrog farm in Calabria, southern Italy. It’s the impressive feature directorial debut of the Cesar-winning French actor Stéphane Freiss, and it will feature at next month’s UK Jewish Film Festival.

The film is a tender, visually sumptuous artistic triumph. It is also, for Freiss, the outcome of a years-long personal journey wrestling with the confusing legacy of his past in order to bring what he wanted to say, and how he wanted to say it, into focus.

The film’s plot centres on Esther (Lou de Laâge), the 25-year-old daughter of a rabbi, who is alreading chafing against the demands of strictly Orthodox Judaism when her family arrives at the farm of Elio (Riccardo Scamarcio), a non-Jewish Italian farmer, for the annual etrog harvest.

Elio has a comfortable life but, burdened by family tradition and loyalty to his late father’s wishes, is also not living the one he wants. He and Esther form a bond that could change both their lives.

Freiss did not want to make a “Jewish film” — he insists Where Life Begins isn’t one — and setting the film in Italy, where it was easier to engineer a meeting between a Jew and a Christian within a shared event, made it possible to hone his real theme: freedom.

“It’s a film, above all, on freedom, and our capacity to liberate ourselves from [in this case] the weight of this very heavy Jewish Orthodox legacy,” he says. “In my opinion, this is the most difficult thing, just to get free of the weight you have on your shoulders; but not all of it, just the heavy part, the useless part, the part which belongs to the wrong part of the legacy.

“But it takes a lot of courage, a lot of force, a lot of conviction. I want to think that in every life there is an opportunity to get free of our decisions and, above all, of what we received from our traditions and our family. This is more or less what I wanted to write.”