THE DIARY OF DIANA B.

Winner of four Golden Arenas at the main national festival in Pula, this film shook cultural as well as political public opinion on the whole territory of the former Yugoslavia. The main heroine of this Croatian Schindler’s list is an Austrian remarkable woman Diana B., who led one of the largest children’s rescue campaigns of WWII, protecting 10,000 children from certain death.
The film will be introduced by lawyer Aleksandar Kontic via Facebook. The screening via PICL will be accompanied by video intro and Q&A with the director Dana Budisavljevic.

Synopsis

At the beginning of World War II in Nazi-occupied Croatia, Diana Budisavljevic discovers that Serbian Orthodox women and children are being massively imprisoned in a concentration camp. Instead of opting for a comfortable life as a Croatian doctor’s wife, she embarks on a dangerous journey of rescuing those children. Despite rejections for support from Jewish community, Catholic church and Red Cross, she pulls the strings she has within Nazi structures and manages to save around 10,000 children.  The film follows a few of the saved children visiting the concentration camp ground eighty years later. It combines interviews with survivors, archive footage and lively re-enactments of Diana’s diary, bringing her decisive presence closer to the audience. This creates a cinematic encounter between a selfless woman and the children she had saved.