​​“God couldn’t be everywhere, so he created mothers,” wrote Rudyard Kipling. Add the word “Jewish” before mothers, and you’ll get a taste of Once Upon My Mother, Ken Scott’s vibrant new adaptation of Roland Perez’s memoir about his childhood and coming of age with a clubfoot, and the miraculous care he received from his mother Esther, determined against everyone’s advice that Roland will lead an extraordinary life. A lively and moving film set in Paris in the world of a Sephardic family from the 1960s to the 2010s, Once Upon My Mother tells an incredibly true story that surprisingly focuses on Roland’s obsession with the singer and actress Sylvie Vartan.