THE TRUCE

Early in 1945, four Red Army soldiers arrive at Auschwitz and pull down the gates. Among the prisoners liberated is Primo Levi, the great Italian-Jewish chemist and writer. Levi jumps on one of the first trucks out of Auschwitz, but going home, as so many Holocaust survivors were to discover, isn't that easy. In Levi's case the return to life is complicated by the circuitous route taken by the Red Army convoys: a laborious trek through the black market of Cracow, thorugh a devastated Bylorussia and Ukraine and down into Romania, Hungary and Austria before arriving in Italy in late autumn. There Levi rediscovered life, hope and dignity, but also a sense of moral outrage that gave rise to some of the most poignant and incisive writing about the Holocaust, including “If this is Just a Man,” written in 1945 and “The Truce,” published in 1963. A labor of love that took ten years to reach the screen, Francesco Rosi's adaptation is a moving creation which authentically transmits the story of a broke n man who lives between hope and despair. – Montreal World Film Festival. (In English and Italian with English subtitles)