You Can See the Same Stars As Me

Synopsis

On February 11, 2020, Jewish astronaut Jessica Meir released a video filmed aboard the International Space Station, on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. 

In her hand, she holds a postcard sent in 1944 from forced labor camps on the Russian front. 

It depicts a child holding a telescope, observing the stars. Beneath the drawing, Felix Kassovitz, a well-known Jewish illustrator, wrote a comforting message to his son: “You can see the same stars as me.” 

How did his postcard reach outer space? 

Through moving and humorous conversations, filled with funny Jewish jokes, Peter Kassovitz tells his son, French director Mathieu Kassovitz, the story of Felix’s survival. 

But this is not just a story about Felix’s survival, or even Peter’s, who was six years old when his mother hid him before she too was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. 

It is a story about the extraordinary ability to believe in and hope for a better world, even in the darkest places imaginable. 

Just as the astronaut Jessica Meir said in her video, we should never give up hope, and we should never forget one simple thing: “You can see the same stars as me.” 

About the Director

Eliav Lilti

Eliav Lilti, born in 1964, studied film at the Department of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University. 

Since graduating, he has directed and edited numerous documentary and fiction films and series, as well as commercials, promotional campaigns, and publicity materials for all Israeli television channels, including Ehud Barak’s election campaigns in 1999 and 2001. 

From 2001 to 2007, he was Creative Director of the Promotion Department at Keshet Broadcasting, Israel’s leading television broadcaster. The campaigns he creatively directed and managed won numerous national and international awards. 

Since 2007, Eliav has focused on directing documentary and fiction films and series. He has also taught at the content incubator of the Communications Department at Reichman University in Herzliya. 

He works artistic consultant for various film funds in Israel, as well as an editing consultant. 

Eliav Lilti is married. In August 2023, he moved to Paris with his family. 

Artistic Statement

Every time I see the postcard that arrived in space, depicting Peter, looking at the stars, Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince comes to mind. Written in 1943, the book expresses childlike innocence. For me, Peter is also that little prince. 

Like Saint-Exupéry’s child, who questions adults’ behavior and judgment, Peter is offered a fantastic, imagined future through his father’s postcards: a world where the harsh reality outside is muted, and life unfolds in an innocent, imaginary world. 

Through animation of the postcards, I want to revive this world, breathe life into them, and give them a voice. The film will be narrated by Mathieu Kassovitz, the French director, as he recounts the moment his father first told him their family story. Alongside the animated postcards and archival footage, father and son will share Jewish jokes and humor, discovering that as long as there is hope, there is life.