Growing up we didn't have to look far for horror stories. Why look to Hollywood, when we had our own family histories?

Raised on terrifying tales from forebears who managed to survive the atrocities of the camps, I found films such as "Escape from Sobibor," "Europa Europa," "Schindler's List," "Life is Beautiful," and "Bent" truly important, but painful to watch. I often wondered why others, who weren't familiar with, let alone touched by the Holocaust, would even view such films; and, in my opinion, these were the people who most needed to see them.

Director Brian Percival (best known for his BAFTA- and Emmy-winning work on "Downton Abbey") seemed to agree when, during our recent interview, he admitted that he never wanted to make another macabre Holocaust movie. He yearned to create a film about the triumph of the human spirit and the good among the evil so that audiences would be drawn in and "begin to ask questions in their own minds about what went on there and become aware of it because they're interested in it and not from me ramming it down their throats."

The film, based on Markus Zusak's bestselling and award-winning book, follows illiterate, young, and DL Communist Liesel (Sophie Nélisse), who is forced to move in with foster parents Hans and Rosa Hubermann (Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson) in World War II Germany and struggles to fit in with her new community, learn to read, and attain new books at a time of extreme scarcity, censo... [Read more]