It’s been some time since we’ve seen a film based on Anne Frank’s diary, but it looks like we’ll be seeing a new one very soon. This time around the adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank will be turned into an animated film.
Director Ari Folman, is heading up the production and surprisingly the adaptation is said to be a “family-friendly” film. Of the animated adaptation Folman said , “Bringing the Anne Frank Diary to all screens is a fantastic opportunity and challenge. There is a real need for new artistic material to keep the memory alive for younger generations.”
Anne Frank is one of the most widely discussed and studied victims of the Holocaust. Frank died at the young age of 15-years-old at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. Before she died, Frank wrote journal entries during World War II. She had received the diary as a gift on her thirteenth birthday.
This new adaptation isn’t the only film based on Anne Frank, but as an animated film that’s geared towards “family” this is the first film on Anne Frank’s tragic life of its kind. In the past TV adaptations and film adaptations have been made and were very successful. So far the feature that has received most attention is the Oscar-winning 1959 film The Diary of Anne Frank . The film went on to win three Academy Awards in 1960 including Best Supporting Actress (Shelly Winters).
Decades later, The Diary of Anne Frank film was ranked on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Cheers list. Millie Perkins played Anne Frank, while Joseph Schildkraut reprised his stage role as Otto Frank. Winters played Petronella van Daan.
The only known survivor of the Frank family was Otto Frank, who was Anne’s father. In the end he wound up with Anne’s diary, and since then it has been published in over sixty languages or more.
Back in June of this year, video footage of Anne Frank had been revealed and released by the Anne Frank House. It is known as the only footage to survive. Frank would have been 84-years-old.