#AnneFrank. Parallel Stories

Sabina Fedeli and Anna Migotto's 2019 documentary sets Anne Frank's diary beside the testimony of other women. Helen Mirren reads passages from the diary in a reconstruction of the secret annex. On a second line, five women taken to the camps in the same years as Anne and who survived speak from the present; most are in their nineties and what they describe is personal experience. A third line follows a young woman visiting memorial sites across Europe and is the weakest part. The film's aim is to lift Anne Frank out of being a single symbol and make the nameless people behind her visible. The structure is scattered but the testimony is strong. Who it's for: viewers interested in the history of the Holocaust and documentaries of witness. Who it's not for: anyone seeking new historical information; this is a work of commemoration.