What do you hope audiences will gain by seeing "Anne Frank Remembered"?
I hope that by illuminating every bit of the story of one life in microscopic
detail, people will think of all those millions of people whose stories
will never be told or known. At the same time this is not just a tale of
those who died in the Holocaust, the six million Jews who were murdered
because of anti-Semitism, but it is also about the victims of discrimination
wherever and whenever that occurs worldwide. I hope it can show the complete
insanity of racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination in any shape or form.
And if a few people go to see this story and can hold up a mirror to themselves
and think just a little about these issues, that would be great.
The message of this film, in my mind, is the same as Otto Frank's.
Otto was adamant that Anne's diary had a universal message. He felt
that it should not just be specific to the Jewish experience of the Holocaust.
There are many who feel that the Holocaust was a uniquely Jewish experience
and that Anne's story should be about the genocide of the Jews specifically.
I don't agree. From my own lifetime, I've seen genocide and
I've seen what happens when nations even turn against themselves and
I have firmly hooked my flag to Otto's universalist message. He wanted
to perpetuate her writings for those reasons and I'm more than comfortable,
happy in fact, to be a small part of that.
I always in making any film, though, start with the premise of entertainment.
Anne Frank Remembered is hopefully educational, hopefully informative.
But I don't want people to pay money to see it in theaters out of
a sense of duty. It has to be entertainment, first and foremost. I hope,
because of that, the audience gets to know her as well as I have. I'm
very proud of the film.
Last modified 08-Feburary-1996.
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