Director’s note

Years ago in Jerusalem, I discovered the existence of a very peculiar Post Office that received letters addressed to God. By international convention, the Post Offices around the world transfer this mail to this department which once a year will go and put it into the Wailing Wall, the holiest place of Jerusalem.

The idea of LETTERS TO GOD was born: the story of a man longing to overcome his pain, that of the loss of his child, through forgiveness and reconciliation. Being personally confronted to the difficulty of forgiving in the past, especially when a lot of suffering has been inflicted, I’m aware that forgiving is to accept and that it can only come from the heart, not from the intellect: it is a manifestation of pure love. Without forgiveness, humanity could not exist.

I believe in the mystery of life. Believer or non-believer, it remains an essential question that deals not only with religion, but with ethics, values, and humanism. LETTERS TO GOD touches on this very mystery. One of our problems, as human beings, is that we too often accuse others of our own suffering instead of seeing what we can change in ourselves. In this sense, forgiveness is a raise of consciousness, an awakening to life. Moshe, the main character of the movie, is going to realize he is the only one who can put an end to his pain. His first step is to give up with ostracism and accept an apparently ordinary job that will change his life forever.

LETTERS TO GOD aims at making the audience experience the emotions felt on the path of awareness that leads to forgiveness, the gift of self that helps us grow.

Yves Cohen