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A14 PEOPLE / ARTS
Wednesday 3 May 2023

A Small Light’ focuses on those who helped Anne Frank

‘By MARK KENNEDY connection to the people
AP Entertainment Writer she was helping.
NEW YORK (AP) — Liev Sch- “The reality of the situation
reiber was visiting conflict- is that we should all care
ravaged Ukraine when he about what’s happening
got a script about real-life in Eastern Europe or for
events some 80 years ago that matter, what’s hap-
that felt strangely timely. pening in Sudan or Turkey
It was a story set during the or whatever,” he said. “I
1942 occupation of the felt like there’s something
Netherlands by the Nazis about Miep that really rep-
and the way some Dutch resents the best in each
risked their lives to save of us, those of us that say
Jews from the Holocaust. yes to each other. I felt like
Celebrated diarist Anne it was a great time to tell
Frank is in it, but she’s al- that story.”
most peripheral. Instead, After the Nazi invasion of
National Geographic’s the Netherlands in July
“A Small Light” focuses on 1942, the Frank family went
a young, newly married into hiding. The Van Pels
woman who helped hide family followed a week lat-
Frank and who provided er. Four months later, they
food and other necessi- were joined by an eighth
ties at great risk. The series This image released by National Geographic for Disney shows Liev Schreiber as Otto Frank, left, person: Fritz Pfeffer, a den-
streams on Disney+ on May and Bel Powley as Miep Gies in a scene from “A Small Light.” tist and acquaintance of
1 and on Hulu the following Associated Press the Frank family. The group
day. was discovered in 1944
“The central storyline being al-life heroine for protect- ble. Gies, who wasn’t Jew- ‘What would I do and what and sent to the Auschwitz
about this young woman ing eight people in a se- ish, faced certain death if should I do?’ Because the concentration and exter-
coming of age and deal- cret annex in Amsterdam discovered. situation right now isn’t that mination camp.
ing with her marriage gives where Frank would write “There’s no point in retell- different.” “A Small Light” shows the
you this incredibly intimate her famous diary. Schreiber ing a story about this part Viewers first meet Gies as humanity of each member
perspective on what it’s plays Anne’s father, Otto of history that everyone an aimless party girl who of the group, from Anne’s
like to have one’s life in- Frank. knows so well if we’re just is transformed into a re- rebelliousness to the nee-
terrupted by an invasion,” In addition to an important going to be bashed over sistance fighter after the dling of family members
Schreiber said. “It felt so historical story, the series the head by the same his- Nazis invade. She bluffs and the discomforts of life
resonant to me.” is also an examination of torical facts we already her way past army check- in hiding. There are fights
“A Small Light” stars Bel how far strangers can go know,” said Powley. “It points and gathers scarce and whining and stubborn-
Powley as Miep Gies, a re- to help someone in trou- needs to make people feel food for the hidden. She ness.
tells one of the people she “Not many of us are famil-
saves: “If you need to cry, iar with rockets hitting our
New Michael Cunningham novel ‘Day’ cry now.” homes,” said Schreiber.
Gies was the secretary of
“But we can relate to a re-
scheduled for January Otto Frank, and her fierce lationship that’s not going
altruistic side put her mar-
well. We can relate to an
riage in jeopardy. In one interrupted meal. We can
argument scene, she tells relate to these things that
NEW YORK (AP) — The next world needs novels more The author calls the new her husband: “It’s the right
novel from Pulitzer Prize than ever.” book “a story about peo- thing to do and I’ve agreed were happening to these
winner Michael Cunning- ple dealing with something to do it, and I didn’t think I people’s lives as the rock-
ham, his first in a decade, terrible, and it’s about sur- had to consult you before ets started to fall. And that
is a family saga set in New vival, but more centrally deciding to save a per- brings us into the story in a
York City before and dur- it’s a story about love. I’m son’s life.” unique way.”
ing the COVID-19 pan- deeply interested in love “She was unwavering in The series comes during a
demic. a sense of happiness, of her sense of what the right new spasm of antisemitism
Random House an- living the life that one has thing to do was,” said Pow- in America, with the num-
nounced Monday that hoped to live. And love is ley. “She didn’t hesitate, ber of anti-Jewish incidents
“Day” will be published in most interesting when it and she also was incredibly increasing by more than
January. The novel takes has survived terrible tests.” confident and vivacious 35% in the past year, from
place on three separate Cunningham’s previous and vibrant and alive. I 2,721 in 2021 to 3,697 in
days in April, one each in novels, published by Far- always imagined her with 2022.
the years 2019-2021. rar, Straus & Giroux, in- this huge smile on her face Schreiber sees the num-
“I’ve definitely had mo- clude “Specimen Days,” all of the time.” bers with alarm, having just
ments over the last 10 “By Nightfall” and “The Schreiber, who has spoken completed a series about
years when I thought, well, Hours,” which won the Pu- up about the Ukrainian the Holocaust. “The pat-
if the world is in this kind of litzer for fiction in 1999 and invasion in part because terns are the same misin-
shape, who needs a nov- was adapted into an Os- he has grandparents from formation, disinformation,
el?” Cunningham said in a This cover image released by car winning movie of the there, said Gies’ bravery scapegoats,” he said. “Un-
Random House shows “Day”
statement. “But maybe it’s by Michael Cunningham. same name.q was underlined by the fact fortunately, we are seeing
during hard times that the Associated Press that she had no blood them in the U.S. again.”q