Movies Houstonians Love, the popular film series presented by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, invites notable Houstonians from different professions and walks of life to share a favorite or particularly meaningful film with adventurous, cinema-loving audiences. Next up in the series is Menil Director Josef Helfenstein, who has selected the critically acclaimed "Live and Become" to share with his audience at the MFAH on February 20.

This film is an epic story about an Ethiopian boy who is airlifted from a Sudanese refugee camp to Israel during Operation Moses in 1984. Although he thrives as an adoptive son of a loving family, he is plagued by two secrets: He is neither a Jew nor an orphan, just an African boy who survived and desperately wants to return home. Buoyed by a profound and unfaltering motherly love—both in his memory and in the arms of his adoptive mother—he ultimately finds an identity and a happiness all his own. Writing in the Los Angeles Times the noted film critic and historian Kenneth Turan described the film as "rewarding, rich in humor and warmth -- and abuzz with the turmoil of juggling multiple identities that is a critical element of these cross-cultural times."

Josef Helfenstein, Ph.D., arrived at the Menil Collection in 2004 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he had served as the director of the Krannert Art Museum and as a professor at the University's School of Art and Design. Dr. Helfenstein is one of the world's leading scholars on Paul Klee, having served as chief curator of the Kunstmuseum Berne's Paul Klee Foundation. He has served as guest curator of museum exhibitions around the world.

For more information please call the Menil press office, 713-535-3170, or the MFAH film department, 713-639-7515 or 713-639-7300.