Movie Review: "Live and Become"

Thursday night Delphine and I went to the SF Jewish Film Festival to see the closing night film, "Live and Become" (its French title is "Va, Vis et Deviens"). Frankly, this one of the best films I have ever seen. Ever. Not only was this film beautifully directed and acted, the story was nearly flawless. It elicited so many emotions from me over the course of the two-plus hours that we watched it. I laughed, hard; I cried harder. I felt pride, anger, envy, joy. There were moments in this film that made me think, "I love being Jewish." At other moments I thought, "If that's what it means to be Jewish, I don't want to be Jewish!"

This epic film is about a young Ethiopian boy who goes to Israel as part of "Operation Moses," a secret operation of the Israeli military that airlifted 8,000 Ethiopian Jews out of Sudanese refugee camps in Africa and into Israel during the African famine in 1984/1985, as draught and disease was plaguing the African continent. The airlift was for Ethiopian Jews only and if someone was discovered to be a poser - in other words, not Jewish - he or she was unceremoniously sent back to the living Hell of the Sudanese refugee camps. The young boy was not Jewish. But his mother sent him anyway, because she knew it was his only chance. "Go, live and become," she told him, "and don't come back until you do." The rest of the movie is about the boy's journey to and through life as an Ethiopian "Jew" in Israel. Rather than provide too many details about the movie, I will just suggest that you link here for a brief description.

The movie won the 2005 Cesar - France's version of the Oscars. It also won the audience favorite at the Berlin Film Festival. In other words, this movie is so much more than a Jewish film. See it. I promise you will be moved.

The Job Search Continues
This is the most optimistic I have felt about my career since graduating from business school. I am in the final rounds of interviews for a job that would be PERFECT for me (and I for it!). I want this job more than I wanted Dream Job #1 - because this is the true Dream Job - the opportunity to be the corporate responsibility manager (the company's first) at a large technology company that is committed to CSR and is just starting to integrate it into the core business. This is it. This is the job. This is what I have been working for these past two years. All those projects, the independent studies, the informational interviews, the relentless digestion of CSR news, trends, etc., have brought me to this moment, this job. I want it.

Of course, I want the other job, too. The first-ever CSR manager at the world's "coolest" consumer technology brand. Quarterly trips to China. Managing a team of three. As the recruiter described it, "A pioneer within the company." Admittedly, the first job is really an ideal fit for me. This job would be a great opportunity, a huge challenge and flat out cool. The only thing that increases this jobs "cool factor" over the other one is the fact that the brand is quite possibly the "coolest" consumer brand on the market today. But this company has come to the CSR table because it has to, not because it wants to. It is under increasing pressure around the manufacture of its hugely popular - and quite expensive - products and it has been unable to quell consumers' growing concerns. The first company, however, comes to CSR because it recognizes the potential business benefits of crafting and implementing a CSR strategy on your own terms, where you get to craft the approach and the messages, not your critics.

Meanwhile, nobody has even offered me a job! I have not even interviewed with anyone at the "cool" brand, other than the internal recruiter. I have interviewed with five people at the Dream Job. One more interview on Monday morning (at 8am!) and that should be it. Although who knows because they seem to keep adding people to the itinerary. Is that a good sign? A bad sign? No sign at all? Who knows. All I can do is wait.

Oh, and I am still waiting to be officially rejected by the job for which I am not exactly qualified. They said they would be deciding by the end of this past week and since I have not heard from them yet, I am going to take that to mean that they are just waiting for the candidate to whom they offered it to accept before they reject everyone else. Which is fine. I mean, rejection always sucks. But at least I have no expectations that they will even offer me this job so the rejection will not feel so harsh. And I should be proud that I made it as far as I did considering how unqualified I am for this job. And they did give me great and positive feedback about my interviewing skills, my personality and my smarts. So all that is good. And if I take nothing else away from the experience, at least I can take that away.