The feature film is having its world premiere at The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival on Sunday.
The film is directed by Derek Goldman, the play’s co-author, and Jeff Hutchens. It stars Academy Award nominee David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck, Lincoln, Nomadland) as Jan Karski.
The Jan Karski Foundation writes on its website that Remember This “takes a distinctive approach to filmmaking with a minimalist visual aesthetic designed to profoundly immerse and transport its audience. The elegant simplicity of the space—a table and two chairs, shot in black-and-white—captures Strathairn’s dynamic solo performance in all of its nuance and power, as he not only becomes Jan Karski, but channels over thirty characters from Karski’s extraordinary life. This rich cinematic landscape intensifies an intimate audience experience that makes it seem as though Professor Karski is speaking directly to all of us across time, space, and history.”
In a statement for the press, Derek Goldman said: “Karski bore witness to the worst of humanity and revealed firsthand what happens when nationalism and populism turn to extremism. Despite feeling a failure, he devoted his life to teaching young people, and sought to enlighten the world about what he had witnessed and attempted to expose. The example of Jan Karski speaks directly to our current moment, and his is an inspiring and timely account of the importance of individual responsibility and moral action in the face of hatred and injustice.”
During World War Two, as a member of anti-Nazi resistance, Jan Karski took part in courier missions with dispatches from the Polish underground to the Polish Government-in-Exile, then based in France. During one such mission, in July 1940, he was arrested by the Gestapo. Rescued by Polish resistance, he soon resumed active service in the Information and Propaganda Bureau of the Home Army’s High Command, and in the summer of 1942 was assigned to perform a secret mission to London on behalf of the Polish Government’s Delegate in Poland and several political parties. In order to gather evidence on the plight of Polish Jews, he was twice smuggled by Jewish underground leaders into the Warsaw Ghetto. He met several Allied leaders, including Anthony Eden, Britain’s foreign secretary, and US president Franklin Roosevelt, but failed to secure support for Polish Jews.
After the war, Karski settled in the United States. In 1954 he became a US citizen. He served for four decades as a professor at Georgetown University in Washington, remaining an advocate of Holocaust memory until his death.
Karski’s honours included the Order of the White Eagle, the highest Polish state distinction, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Righteous among the Nations Medal from the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem and the honorary citizenship of Israel.
He is the author of Story of a Secret State and The Great Powers and Poland: 1919-1945, from Versailles to Yalta.
(mk)
Source: PAP