Published: 7 June 2022
Last updated: 4 March 2024
MIRIAM HECHTMAN: Oscar-nominated Israeli director ARI FOLMAN nearly refused when asked to create animated Anne, fearing she was "too iconic”. His new film will show at Sydney Film Festival
Ari Folman says his new film, Where is Anne Frank, is really asking, “Where is her legacy?”
The film recreates Anne and her imaginary friend Kitty, whom she addresses in her diary. Kitty becomes witness to the Frank family’s last months in the Holocaust and to Europe after World War Two.
“Kitty is the bridge to the modern world,” Folman says. Through Kitty’s interactions the film explores current themes such as the refugee crisis and social activism, although Folman is quick to add that some things cannot be compared.
“One and a half million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust. They didn’t even have a chance to become refugees. The people in the movie have a chance to live and they have people that are fighting for their freedom. There can’t be any comparison.”
When, in 2013, the Anne Frank Foundation in Basel approached Folman to make the film, he was reluctant.
“I thought she was too iconic, and I had nothing new to say, but then they gave me some time.”
Folman, whose own children were teenagers at the time, read the diary several times and found it “really stunning, an unbelievable piece of writing for a 13-year-old girl”.
He agreed to make the film on the condition it would be animated. He says audiences tolerate a depth of emotion in animation that they might not manage in a live action film.
Waltz with Bashir, the adult animated war documentary written, produced, and directed by Folman, and based on his experiences in the 1982 Lebanon War, is now used to treat soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. Folman says the patients can relate to the drawings in a way they could not if real actors were involved.
