In His Image

Does a dead man have the right to become a father? Do parents, who lost their son, have the right to become grandparents after his death? In Israel, the desire for offspring has taken on an extra dimension. In His Image follows three mothers who lost a son during his military service and are now trying to have something of him live on in a posthumous grandchild, using semen taken immediately after his death. Filmmaker Tami Ravid doesn’t ignore the ethical aspects of this phenomenon, but she follows the three families, each in their own phase of this emotional process, with compassion and without judgment. Haderet and her husband lost their son in 2004. After years of hesitation, his wife, now remarried, decided that she didn’t want to have a child by her deceased husband. But Haderet fought a lengthy legal battle to obtain her son’s sperm. Ludmila shows off her granddaughter, who was born 15 years after the death of her biological father. For Tzipi and the intended mother of her grandchild, Inbal, it’s a tense time, as Inbal tries to conceive via IVF. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)