Finally available from the festival circuit, this riveting film based on the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book by Isabella Leitner, recounts the true story of a young Hungarian Jew and her sisters interned in Auschwitz, their struggle to survive, and their daring escape from a death march to Bergen Belsen.

In 1944, Isabella and her family were arrested and deported by cattlecar to Auschwitz where they encountered Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called "Angel of Death." He condemned Isabella's mother and youngest sister to death "by a flip of his thumb," but Isabella, her brother and three remaining sisters were spared to suffer until their miraculous escape.

The leit-motif of this extraordinary film is love not hate, the love that sustained Isabella and her sisters through the horrors of the Holocaust. As performed by the luminous Gabrielle Reidy of Dublin's Abbey Theater, this is a lyrical testament to the soul of a young woman yearning to transcend her fate.

Isabella Leitner is available for speaking engagements

London International Film Festival, 1994
Jewish Film Festivals, Boston, Toronto, 1994