Sarah Lederman

Julie lost her parents when she was still very young. Now she is 13 and has long since settled in her new home, with a family who loves her. Over the years she has managed to accept her fate. “Light” follows Julie for a while and shows a girl who, despite immeasurable loss, faces the world with her arms wide open.

The lives of two neighbours, one a pious Jewish woman, the other secular, cross during a power cut. Both are driven by a curiosity about what they have not been able to see, until now.

Two women—one Ashkenazi Jew from Poland and one Sephardic Jew from Algeria—meet in Brussels with the same quest: to find out what their Jewish identity means to them. Their biggest desire is to undergo the water ritual called Mikveh. But they are not welcome in a bath house being neither married nor orthodox. Nonetheless, they try to claim their heritage on a road trip and on their own Judaism.

When Sarah’s father receives a terminal diagnosis, she hides behind her camera to preserve his presence forever. What begins as a desperate attempt to hold on to what is slipping away slowly unfolds into a tender portrait of their bond and a vulnerable reflection on her grieving process.