Love, war and the choices that determine the fate of an ultra-Orthodox family in a story that straddles the tragedy of the Shoah and the contradictions of modern Israel.

A comparison between two generations, a grandfather and a grandson, between tradition and modernity.

Chaim and Levi, grandfather and grandson, live in contemporary Jerusalem and belong to an ultra-Orthodox family. Their stories unfold between past and present, and tales of the Second World War and the horror of the Shoah intersect with those of everyday events in a staunchly practising family. The tradition and modernity they both represent inevitably clash when Levi falls in love with a young female soldier who smokes, wears trousers and can’t cook. Past and present reflect each other, war and peace merge, and they quickly discover how unfair the dictates of religion can be and how it is sometimes necessary to deviate from the imposed norms. Moreover, the future is about to bring new challenges.

Jan, a young Macedonian, throws himself off a viaduct and Clémence, who is taking a walk, instinctively jumps into the river and manages to save him. This gives rise to a difficult, contentious relationship that binds them in a constant flux to and from the abyss – the void – everybody must take face.

A story of violence and abandonment, but also of redemption and love – a love that never takes its eyes off the other person or the world.

Clémence is an art expert who lives a comfortable, monotonous life with her partner Davide. She takes long walks to chase away the demons that torment her, and it is on one of her strolls that one day she sees a young man throw himself off a viaduct. She instinctively jumps into the river to save him. This encounter leads to a challenging, contentious relationship: Jan is handsome, desperate and apparenly all alone in the world, but what Clémence doesn’t know is that he carries a secret, bloody history.

It’s a story that began years before his birth, in Macedonia, with the christening of Magdalena, an unwanted little girl – a christening performed in a vain attempt to shield her from the sin of abandonment. Consequently, the little girl grows up seeking in everyone’s eyes something to take her away from the edge of the abyss. It is precisely in the depth of this abyss that the souls of Clémence, Jan and Magdalena meet.