“My Daughter Anne Frank” (Meine Tochter Anne Frank) is a docudrama that aired in February 2015 on German television. http://www.daserste.de/specials/ueber-uns/aktuelle-meldungen-14052014-anne-frank-100.html The highly acclaimed production is based on the world-famous diary written by Anne Frank, a Jewish teen, who kept a journal while in hiding in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Her diary was published in more than 60 different languages.
History of the Frank family
The Frank family went into hiding in 1942 when Anne′s older sister received a summons to report to a Nazi work camp in Germany. Anne, her father Otto, her mother Edith and her sister Margot immediate moved into sealed-off attic rooms in an annex at the back of Otto’s company building. Here the Franks were joined by the Hermann van Pels family, which included the Pels’ teenage son Peter, and Mrs. van Pels’ dentist. During the years the group spent in hiding Anne kept a journal. In August 1944, their hiding place was discovered, and everyone was deported to various Nazi concentration camps. Anne died from typhus in 1945 at the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. She was 15 years old when she died. A few weeks later, in April 1945, British troops liberated the remaining prisoners. Of the group of eight, only Otto Frank survived the holocaust.
My Daughter Anne Frank Docudrama
“My Daughter Anne Frank” is told from the perspective of Anne’s father, Otto Frank, although Anne is clearly the central figure of the film. The docudrama follows Anne’s life from her happy childhood to the hiding place in Amsterdam and finally to her death in the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. At the heart of the film is the relationship between father and daughter. After he returns home from the extermination camp Auschwitz, Otto Frank is presented with the diary of his dead daughter. For the first time, he learns of her dreams of love, freedom and sexuality. Her writings plunge Otto into deep mourning but eventually also give him the courage to face life again. Otto Frank passed away in 1980.
The emotionally charged and moving production of “My Daughter Anne Frank” is said to stay close to the writings in Anne’s diary and includes historical footage and interviews with her surviving classmates.
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Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.
