Sign up for the battlefordsNOW newsletter

Hollywood film on couple who saved Jews premiering in Poland

Mar 7, 2017 | 5:00 AM

WARSAW, Poland — Hollywood actress Jessica Chastain and crew members of a movie telling the real-life story of a Warsaw woman who saved dozens of Jews from the Holocaust are in the city for the movie’s gala screening.

In “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” Chastain portrays Antonina Zabinska, the wife of the former Warsaw zoo director, Jan Zabinski. During World War II, the coupled saved up to 300 Jews, hiding them in their home and in animal enclosures, risking their own lives and those of their children.

Two-time Academy Award nominee Chastain, along with actor Daniel Bruhl, director Niki Caro and others, will attend a gala screening on Tuesday. The movie opens in theatres March 31.

It is based on a book by an American author, Diane Ackerman, published in 2007.