SYNOPSIS
The true story of Jan Karski who told of humanity’s greatest crimes while there was still time to stop them.
In a virtuoso solo performance, Academy Award-nominee David Strathairn (Nomadland, Good Night, and Good Luck, Lincoln) portrays Jan Karski in this genre-defying true story of a reluctant World War II hero and Holocaust witness. After surviving the devastation of the Blitzkrieg, Karski swears allegiance to the Polish Underground and risks his life to carry the first eyewitness reports of war-torn Poland to the Western world, and ultimately, the Oval Office. Escaping a Gestapo prison, bearing witness to the despair of the Warsaw ghetto and confronted by the inhumanity of a death camp, Karski endures unspeakable mental anguish and physical torture to stand tall in the halls of power and speak the truth. Strathairn captures the complexity and legacy of this self-described “insignificant, little man” whose timely story of moral courage and individual responsibility can still shake the conscience of the world.
The film takes a bold, elegant and expressionistic approach to cinematically transform the original stage play on which REMEMBER THIS is based and to provide an intensity and intimate theatricality rarely experienced on screen. A minimalist visual aesthetic and the simplicity of the space—a table and two chairs, shot in black-and-white—captures Strathairn’s dynamic one-man performance in all of its nuance and power, as he not only becomes Jan Karski, but channels over thirty characters from Karski’s extraordinary life. Filmed in the shooting style of a continuous shot, the audience is drawn into Karski’s world and memories, and invited to experience the journey along with him as though Jan Karski is speaking directly to all of us across time, space and history.
For more information visit RememberThisKarskiFilm.com
CREDITS
Featuring David Strathairn as Jan Karski
Directed by Jeff Hutchens & Derek Goldman
Produced by Eva Anisko
Executive Producers Eva Anisko, Michael Anisko, Dan Logan
Written by Clark Young & Derek Goldman
Director of Photography Jeff Hutchens
Co-Producer Alexander Hyde
Co-Executive Producer Harlene Freezer
Edited by Brandon Bray
Music by Roc Lee
REMEMBER THIS is a production of Sobremesa Media