“The Zookeeper’s Wife”

“The Zookeeper’s Wife”

by senior contributor Brendan Kownacki
Photo credit: Brendan Kownacki

“I’m very excited to share Antonina’s message with the world,” said actress Jessica Chastain about her character in the new film, The Zookeeper’s Wife. “She was a refugee, she fled violence in Russia and found her safe place in Warsaw, and then created a sanctuary for others.” The Zookeeper’s Wife is a true life tale of heroism about Antonina Zabinski and her husband Dr. Jan Zabinski who ran the Warsaw zoo and ended up sheltering and saving hundreds of Jews during the 1939 German invasion of Poland.

Jessica Chastain

Chastain was on hand in Washington, DC at The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to premiere the film along with director Niki Coro, screenwriter Angela Workman, and Diane Ackerman who was the author of the original book that was the basis for the film.

Coro said that it was a “total privelege” to showcase such a powerful story about heroes during a time that was “total darkness” for the world. Workman echoed similar thoughts about starting with Ackerman’s book and then building up a cinematic story that would capture audiences. She spent significant time exploring the Holocaust Museum to understand the mindset and the energy and people of the era.

Niki Coro, Jessica Chastain, Diane Ackerman and Angela Workman

Ackerman said she relates to the way that Antonina interacted with those around her, loving animals and wanting to not just help the people she encountered but support them more deeply as well. She said that so many of the women in the film developed a sense of “kinship” with the main character because she was heroic, but not in the way that most films use the term, because this was heroism absent of violence.

The idea of civil action and becoming a role model became important for Chastain who says that growing up she felt like she didn’t learn about the important roles that women played in history. “I learned about a lot of men in history but not women and my goal is to change that. My goal is to create representation in the media that little girls can look up to and aspire to be, and know that they can do anything they want to do and be anything they want to be in their lives.”

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