ANNE FRANK’S DIARY

In 1942 a girl in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam entered in her diary, “I'm going to be a famous journalist and writer,” never to see those words come true, as indeed they did. Anne Frank's diary, translated into 55 languages, has been adapted as a stage drama, a movie, a ballet, and now as animation ? the first feature-length animation screened at the CIFF in four years. This English-language European co-production is no mere “Classics Illustrated” cartoon, but a visually vibrant, scrupulously faithful, and profoundly-touching new adaptation of the journal kept by schoolgirl Anne when her Jewish family went into hiding from the roundups and deportations of the Holocaust. Housed and fed by sympathetic gentile friends in a concealed suite in an office building, Anne confides to her notebook (which she addresses as a friend, ?Kitty?) her daily irritation at dwelling like a mouse in the walls, her terror of the Gestapo patrols, and the ever-present danger of discovery and shipment to the concentration camps. Adolescent gossip and breathless war reports go hand-in-hand with youthful musings on good and evil in the world. “I want to go on living even after my death. And that's why I'm grateful for this gift of being able to write and express my intimate thoughts.” With this beautiful film, Anne Frank's words live for another generation