Janus films presents

Before he left his mark on cinema forever with The Battle of Algiers, Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo directed this uncompromising World War II drama about a young Jewish woman (Susan Strasberg) in a Nazi concentration camp who saves herself from death by assuming another’s identity and becoming a ruthless warden.

The Oscar-nominated Kapò was one of the first films to depict the horror of the Holocaust, and it does so with brutality and daring emotional complexity.


Overview
The French/Italian/Yugoslav concentration camp drama Kapo stars Susan Strasberg, who several years earlier had originated the title role in the Broadway production The Diary of Anne Frank. Here, Ms. Strasberg is once again a European Jewish teenager victimized by the Nazis. Interred in a concentration camp, Strasberg is befriended by the camp's kindly doctor, who helps her hide her true identity and work as a camp guard, or "kapo." Unfortunately, Strasberg's new found power goes to her head, and her abuse of that power is very nearly on the same level as the Nazis. Brought down to earth by the death of a close friend, Strasberg spearheads an escape attempt, sacrificing her own life in the process. Nominated for a best foreign picture Oscar in 1960, Kapo nonetheless did not find an American distributor until 1964.