A Newly Animated Direction: Ari Folman’s latest film is ‘Where Is Anne Frank?’ Courtesy of Ari Folman

Though Ari Folman’s “Where Is Anne Frank” received a 15-minute standing ovation at its Cannes Film Festival premiere, the animated movie wasn’t aimed at the film industry types whose eyes welled with tears in the Palais Des Festivals.

Folman made the story for children.

The animated story gives a voice and a face to Kitty, the imaginary friend of Anne Frank and the nickname of her famous diary, who wakes up in present time in the Amsterdam house where the Frank family hid from the Nazis and where Anne wrote her famous diary.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

In an interview at an office near the Palais, Folman explained that he geared the film toward a young audience “so the story would be preserved and told again.” Conjuring Kitty also allowed him to explore the end of Anne Frank’s life.

“The story was never told,” he says. “We know she died, but we don’t know what happened during the last seven months. Anne Frank is more than a Jewish icon. And I think the success of her diary comes from the fact that there is no violence, no cruelty.”

Folman said that including Kitty’s perspective was crucial.

“She is Anne’s alter ego,” he said. “In the book, Anne describes her. She gives instructions of how she should look — everything, her eyes, her lips, her smile. And then we created her.”

The movie goes back and forth between World War II and the present day, enabling Kitty to discover what happened to Anne Frank while understanding that children’s lives are still threatened in other humanitarian crises.

“One out of five children are still in danger,” says the director who is the son of Holocaust survivors. “One out of five! This is not just the past.”

A Newly Animated Direction: Ari Folman’s latest film is ‘Where Is Anne Frank?’ Courtesy of Ari Folman

Folman notes that his family shared a similar history with the Franks and the movie reflects some of those sad moments. Like the Frank sisters (whose fate was discovered by their surviving father, Otto), Folman’s mother and aunt were separated at a concentration camp. But his mother survived. (She is now 98 and fulfilled a promised that she would live at least to the day of the premiere of the movie.

Folman hopes “Where Is Anne Frank” will spur a new generation of activists. But he tries to keep his expectations in check.

“Don’t forget, films don’t change the world,” he says. “Leaders change the world. Laws change the world. But if there are 400 people in a theater watching ‘Waltz with Bashir’ and eight of them google ‘Sabra and Shatila,’ I have done my job. If people watch ‘Where is Anne Frank’ and eight of them google ‘refugees and Mali,’ I have done my job. This is the best I can do.”

Karine Cohen-Dicker is a French journalist who lives in New York.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount