Etty, the latest series by Israeli television creator Hagai Levi, will premiere at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, which begins in late August. All six episodes will be shown.
Levi was the creator of the iconic Israeli television series BeTipul, which was remade around the world in dozens of countries, including as the HBO series In Treatment. He also created The Affair, Our Boys, and the Scenes from a Marriage remake, which was also shown in Venice in 2021.
The story of Etty
Etty is based on the tragic story of Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jewish woman who was murdered in Auschwitz at age 29 and whose diaries, published nearly 40 years after her death, drew worldwide acclaim and were published in 18 languages.
She wrote about her quest to find meaning through religion, her emotional struggles, and the persecution of Dutch Jewry by the Nazis. Refusing offers to go into hiding, she worked to help the Jewish community as long as she could.
The series stars Austrian stage and screen actress Julia Windischbauer in the title role, as well as Sebastian Koch (The Lives of Others) as her psychoanalyst Julius Spier, and Israeli actress Evgenia Dodina.
“I’m honored and thrilled to return to Venice with Etty,” Levi said. “I couldn’t imagine a more fitting platform to present this work. Her diaries have profoundly impacted my life since I discovered them over a decade ago.
“In these times of war, hatred, and despair, the compassion and faith Etty offers through her words, written over 80 years ago, feel more relevant than ever. This is a series very close to my heart, and I hope it touches many others as well.”
The series is a French, German, and Dutch co-production from Levi and the European channel ARTE. Yaël Fogiel (Les Films du Poisson) is the executive producer, and among the production companies that created it are Komplizen Film (Toni Erdmann), Topkapi Films (Another Round), Quiddity Films (Supernova), and the Israeli global entertainment studio SIPUR (Bad Boy and We Will Dance Again).
Other films that will premiere
In addition to Etty, SIPUR is co-producing several movies that will have their world premieres at Venice and the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival. These include the new Gus Van Sant movie, Dead Man’s Wire, which is based on a true hostage-taking incident in the US in the 1970s and stars Al Pacino, Bill Skarsgard, and Colman Domingo.
Nuremberg, directed by James Vanderbilt, stars Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, and Michael Shannon in a story of an American psychiatrist in Germany after World War II who is tasked with determining whether Nazi prisoners are fit to stand trial for war crimes, including Hermann Göring.