Overview
- A San Francisco Chronicle review published Tuesday highlights the film’s focus on the bond between an elderly Heller and a Marin County teen who records his story.
- Stephen Lang plays the older Heller, Luke David Blumm portrays him as a boy, and Elsie Fisher co-stars as Abby.
- The narrative alternates between early-2000s Marin scenes and flashbacks to Terezin and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
- Writer-director Finn Taylor researched in Prague, Terezin and Auschwitz, shooting largely in Eastern Europe with key scenes set in Bay Area redwoods.
- Heller, a Czech Jewish survivor who later ran San Rafael’s Heller’s for Children for about 53 years, kept his past private for decades before speaking to Bay Area youth.