The Polish Institute in Rome is organising the screening of "The zookeeper’s wife" by Niki Caro at the Massimo.

The Polish Institute in Rome is organising the film screening of The zookeeper’s wife, directed by Niki Caro, in collaboration with the honorary Polish consulate in Turin, the Jewish Community and the Polish Community in Turin.

Maybe not everyone knows that the walls of the zoo in Warsaw preserve an incredible true tale of friendship and heroism, which took place during the Second World War. The film tells this very story: about zoologist Jan Żabisńki and his wife Antonina, in charge of the management of the zoo in the Polish capital, who saved about 300 Jews by hiding them within their compound between 1939 and 1945. The Żabisńkis earned a Righteous among the Nations recognition in 1965 for their heroic deeds.

The screening will be introduced by a short presentation of the film, drawn from a true story, on the part of the organising Bodies. Admission is free until full seating capacity is reached.

Niki Caro

The Zookeeper’s Wife

(USA/Great Britain 2017, 127', DCP, col., o.v. it.s/t)

Jan Żabisńki became the director of the Warsaw zoo in 1929. Together with his wife Antonina he stocked the zoological garden, born out of a Nineteenth century itinerant animal exhibition, with the most beautiful and exotic species. However, in 1939, Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland, and the bombing prior to that, destroyed the zoo and killed many animals. An agreement with the leading zoologist of the Reich, Lutz Heck, allowed them to stay on and resume work, but the Żabiński  couple did much more: they filled their cellar and the cages that remained empty with all the people they managed to get out secretly from the ghetto in Warsaw.