Anne Frank [Classroom Edition]

Director: Robert Dornhelm Robert Dornhelm

Overview

Anne Frank was an ordinary girl forced by circumstances to bear witness to the most extraordinary tragedy of the 20th century, and the diary she left behind became one of the best known and most affecting documents of those who struggled to survive the Holocaust under Nazi occupation during World War II. Anne Frank is a four-hour television miniseries that retells the well-known story of the Frank family as they hid from Nazi occupation forces in an attic in Amsterdam between 1942 and 1944, but it also takes a look at the life Anne and her family led before the pogrom swept through Germany and Holland, as well as the harrowing details of the grim fate that awaited the Franks in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Hannah Taylor Gordon stars as Anne Frank, with Ben Kingsley as her father Otto, Jessica Manley as her sister Margot, Brenda Blethyn as Auguste Van Pels, and Lily Taylor as Miep Gies; the real-life Miep Gies, one of the Frank family's benefactors, served as a consultant to the producers of this project. Anne Frank (also advertised as Anne Frank: The Whole Story) was first aired by the ABC television network on May 20 and May 21, 2001.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/31/2009
UPC:	0786936792225
Original Release:	2001
Rating:	NR
Source:	Disney Educational
Language:	English
Sales rank:	60,617

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Hannah Taylor Gordon	Anne Frank
Ben Kingsley	Otto Frank
Tatjana Blacher	Edith Frank
Brenda Blethyn	Auguste Van Pels
Lili Taylor	Miep Gies
Joachim Krol	Herman Van Pels
Jessica Manley	Margot Frank
Nick Audsley	Peter Van Pels
Jan Nicklas	Fritz Pfeffer
Peter Bolhuis	Victor Kugler
Victoria Anne Brown	Jacque Van Maarsen
Jeff Caster	Lammert Hartog
Rob Das	Jan Gies
Cees Geel	William Van Maaren
Michael Horakova	Sanne Ledermann
Dominique Horwitz	Hans Goslar
Nicky Kantor	Hello Silberberg
Branka Katic	Charlotte Kaletta
Ela Lehotska	Bep Voskuijl
Johannes Silberschneider	Johannes Kleiman
Holger Daemgen	Sergeant Silberbauer
Carly Wus	Ruth Goslar
Jade Williams	Hannah Goslar
Karel Dobry	Commandant
Klara Issova	Janny Brandes
Veronika Nowag Jones	Lena Hartog
Zdenka Volencova	Lientje Brandes
Jaroslava Siktancova	Camp Teacher
Nancy Bishop	Red Cross Representative
Phil Jones	SD Man
Jan Klima	SD Man
Jelena Juklova	Food-Stealing Woman
Joel Kirby	Policeman
Howie Lotker	Male Kapo
Kristina Madericova	Female Kapo
Petra Lustigova	Female Barracks leader
Jakob Schwartz	Male Barracks Leader
Ivo Niederle	Birkanau Doctor
Rudolf Pellar	Registrar
Jan Niklas	Fritz Pfeffer
Graeme Revell	Composer

Technical Credits

Kirk Ellis

Robert Dornhelm	Director
Kirk Ellis	Screenwriter
Hans Proppe	Executive Producer
David Kappes	Producer
Risa Kes	Casting

Editorial Reviews

Almost everyone knows the heartbreaking story of Anne Frank, the Jewish girl condemned to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp after she and her family spent two years in an Amsterdam attic hiding from the Nazis. The extraordinary book she wrote while in hiding, called Het Achterhuis (The Diary of a Young Girl), recorded her poignant and incredibly wise observations about life. Anne Frank tells her story, beginning in 1939, when she is a happy schoolgirl bursting with dreams. Later, the Nazi occupation of Holland changes everything. The film builds suspense gradually, showing the fingerprinting of Anne and her father, the beating of Jews by Nazi supporters, the tedium of daily life in the attic, and the appearance of a snooping Nazi collaborator in the employ of the business operated by the non-Jews who supply the attic dwellers -- the Franks and several other Jews -- with food and medicine. During the day, Anne gazes longingly out the window at life below -- people strolling, riding bicycles, pushing baby carriages. At night, Anne and the others huddle in terror as allied planes bomb the city or Nazi patrols round up Jews on the streets below. The entire cast performs with distinction, in particular, Ben Kingsley as soft-spoken Otto Frank and Hannah Taylor-Gordon -- a spindly slip of a girl with dark eyes and a winsome smile -- as Anne. To heighten the sense of realism, the cinematographers show archival film snippets of wartime Amsterdam. When the camera's vantage point shifts, actors and extras take the places of the real people. Then color gradually infuses the black-and-white images. The production follows the fate of the Franks to the very end.