The story of Anne Frank is retold with actual childhood friends and her protector Miep Gies at 85 years old. The story has been retold countless times but it's an emotional journey of the world's greatest diarist. Anne Frank wanted to be a journalist and her diaries proved to be an invaluable tool in understanding the catastrophe of the Holocaust. Why would Hitler want to kill Anne and her friends and her relatives as well? For the most part, the journey takes from Frankfurt, Germany (Anne's birthplace) to Amsterdam where she and her family lived before they hid in the infamous attic. We get to see the attic from Miep Gies' point of view. The most touching moment is when she meets Fritz Werner Pfeffer (the dentist's son who survived the war in England). He would die two months later from cancer, we are told. The journey takes us to the dreadful camps with the survivors. Many of the Dutch Jews were caught in hiding and the Franks were four of them with four others. Otto Frank would be the only survivor. He was quite a gentleman. I loved Hannah's mother's saying about Anne Frank. She was quite a lively lovely young girl and her sister Margot too. If you get the DVD, you will be disappointed that there isn't anything else on there with special features.

I was forced to watch this farce of a dairy now proved to be false and fictitious, the only thing true may be the the characters named in the book, we will never know for sure.This farce was written by Mr. Vandam's secretary and portions of the supposed diary written with ball point pens which were not in use that the time when the fake diary was written.It is difficult watch this boring movie, it's slow in many places and dreary. Not worth the time of watching this false story badly written, badly acted video. Also explores sexuality, something that should not be shown to children.Don't Bother

A documentary on the life of Anne Frank, a Jewish girl whose family lived in hiding from the Nazis in a secret annexe in Amsterdam between 1942 and 1944, and whose book Het Achterhuis (translated as The Diary Of A Young Girl) has become symbolic of the horrors of the Second World War and is perhaps the most famous diary in history.The story of Anne Frank is many things - uplifting, heartbreaking, profound - and this Academy Award-winning documentary is a fascinating and deeply moving study of her life and the abhorrent anti-Semitism of World War II. It details Anne's family's early life in Frankfurt, their move to Holland, their father's careful plans to hide out the war in the secret rooms of his company office, life in hiding, their betrayal by an unknown informer, and the horrors of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, where Anne and her sister Margot both died of typhus. It is a particularly intimate and touching film because of the participation of two women; Gies, who helped protect the Franks and rescued Anne's diaries when the Franks were captured, and Goslar, a close friend of Anne's from pre-war days who was imprisoned in a neighbouring labour camp. These women's courage, intelligence and humanity is simply extraordinary, and the candour with which they celebrate Anne's life is deeply moving, as are the testimonies of everyone else who knew her. Anne's strength lies in her universal free spirit; she was not perfect - by all accounts spoiled, precocious and short-tempered - but she was her own person, with a talent, imagination and desire to make her mark on the world. Everyone can identify with her, which makes the senseless obscenity of a war politic that murders innocent fifteen-year-old girls for the sake of their racial background all the more incomprehensible. Goslar sums it up eloquently, saying, "I cannot judge this whole period. Nobody can understand it I think.". The film concludes with an astonishing image; a few seconds' film of Anne standing at her window on the Merwedeplein, taken by an amateur cameraman filming a wedding in the street. There she is - a symbol of hope in the face of bigotry and hatred. With excellent music by Carl Davis, terrific narration by Branagh and Anne's diary excerpts read by Richardson. The film was financed by Blair, the BBC and the Disney Channel, and received a limited but well-deserved theatrical release.

I've read "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" when I was in high school, and found myself completely engrossed in her story, and also in the Broadway play of her life in the Secret Annexe.However, I'm a little perplexed about how people have perceived her diary and of her as a person, seeing her as a little saint or having a message of hope for the world. I don't think that was the original intention of her diary. She wrote it mainly for herself, even though she did make some rigorous rewrites before the occupants of the Secret Annexe were betrayed, intending it to be published someday.But I never saw her as a saint or as a messenger of hope...but as a very talented writer who could express her thoughts very well and very entertainingly in a diary. No doubt she was a very engaging writer, and she did possess an extraordinary talent with expressing herself fully with words. You really got to know her well through her diary. But the importance of her diary lies in the fact that it is a testament and an important historical document of the proof that the Holocaust did happen.It also brought the tragedy of the Holocaust closer to home, to lose someone that we could put a familiar face and personality to, at such a young age...literally having had her young life ripped away from her and from the other occupants who were murdered in the Holocaust. It's a searing indictment of the Nazis systematic murder of over 6 million Jews, and that should not be forgotten.But it's sad to me that her diary is being so misconstrued as anything more than that. When I look for hope, I have the Bible...the first most widely read non-fiction book in the world. God's Words in the Bible is eternal...but Anne's diary is a diary of a young girl under extraordinary circumstances, and that is it. She is not someone to be worshiped or idolized, because she was an ordinary girl with many flaws, who possessed incredible talent as a writer, and who died at age 15 from typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She was a victim of the Holocaust, and as this otherwise excellent documentary has so vividly testified, she was Hitler's most famous victim.Besides the Anne Frank's story...the stories from her family members and friends and survivors of the Holocaust were engrossing, vivid and powerful. I especially enjoyed Miep Gies' testimony, and marvel that she is still strong and alive today. Hannah Goslar's testimony was also very interesting. And I also liked hearing from Otto Frank. But I also agree that the moving picture of the young girl with the dark hair and the familiar big eyes at the end was particularly memorable. Another thing about the Holocaust that I kind of disagree with the documentary...is that I don't believe it was just a matter of discrimination...but rather something deeper and more profound, and that was just an act of pure evil. Pure evil. Nothing else but pure evil.Excellent documentary of Anne Frank and of the Holocaust that should be watched.