Avi Nesher’s Past Life is inspired by Dr. Baruch Milch’s autobiography “Can Heaven Be Void?”
The tale is set in 1977, when no female has ever been a renowned classical music composer.
Sephi Milch, a very determined and talented young woman, aspires to a career as a classical composer, but she knows the odds are against her. In spite of this, she is dead set on changing the course of history and succeeding in the male-dominated classical music world.
Her struggle with the burden of history is not only limited to her artistic life
– as the daughter of troubled Holocaust survivors she also has to deal with a sudden revelation from the past that threatens to tear her family apart.
Nana Milch – Sephi’s older sister and bitter rival, a scandal sheet journalist and an aspiring playwright – considers this startling revelation an opportunity to free herself from the stranglehold of her parents’ past. Sephi is weary of her sister’s tendency to look for trouble, but in this case she has no choice but to join Nana’s quest for the truth.
The two sisters travel throughout Europe, bent on uncovering the past and getting to the truth behind their parents’ darkest secret. As they are inevitably drawn into an emotional rollercoaster ride, they discover that freedom exacts a high price, as does the struggle to liberate one’s unique artistic voice.
