BIG SONIA

Wednesday, April 10 | 6:30 pm | Refreshments | Free admission

“Her name is Sonia Warshawski. You understand that this kind, Jewish woman with a Polish accent lived all her teenage years amid the terror and pain of the Holocaust. During World War II, the Holocaust resulted in the murder of six million Jews and members of other groups who were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds. WWII formally ended in 1945, when Sonia was just 19 years old. Its effects continue to influence the lives of every survivor, and their families .”  – from the  Educational Companion Guide for BIG SONIA

“Sometimes the really big stories come from the smallest places. As filmmakers, we travel all over the world chasing stories about people making an impact. In making BIG SONIA, we realized some of those stories are right in our own backyards.

“When we began filming in 2011, my grandmother Sonia Warshawski was 85 years old, and Todd and I had just started dating. On the heels of our last feature documentary, FINDING HILLYWOOD, our intention was to make a short film about my grandmother’s small tailoring shop, John’s Tailoring, and its steady stream of loyal customers. My extended family had long joked about using the shop as the subject of a reality show. We’d all long witnessed Sonia holding court from her counter-top podium, doling out marriage advice, recommending WWII books to teenagers, and doing interviews for local news stations. We knew Sonia had a gift for making anyone in her shop feel like they were the most important person in the world. And we knew the shop was her own refuge from the horrors of her past as a teenage Holocaust survivor. Once we started filming, however, it soon became clear that customers were drawn to John’s Tailoring not just for gossip and human connection, but also for their own redemption. They came in because Sonia sets a glowing example of how an ordinary person can move past deep personal and historical trauma to find peace and heal others.

“Still, our time with Sonia revealed her complex side. Her interactions with customers are very different from her relationships with her family, which have often been tense and tender, overshadowed by decades of survivor’s guilt and post-traumatic stress. During the course of production, we began to perceive the trauma suffered not just by Sonia, but by my aunts and father, who had survived the trauma of a household gripped by grief and loss. As a third-generation survivor, I also began to see the ways in which Sonia’s pain had branded me, the grandchild of refugees, and the child of a parent who’d long grappled with his own mother’s pain.

“Then, suddenly, the plot turned. Sonia’s shop got an eviction notice. Her panic was palpable. And while we knew Sonia would survive the physical loss of her shop, we were also compelled by her store’s symbolic role as a forum for human connection: a stronghold and a place of safety for Sonia and so many others. We continued to film, and our “short” turned into a feature. Oh, and in the middle of it all, Todd and I got married. The store was now woven into the fabric of our lives, too.

“Despite featuring a Holocaust survivor, BIG SONIA is not a ‘Jewishmovie,’ and it’s not a ‘Holocaust movie.’ BIG SONIA is a story about humanity: our human potential to overcome even the worst of the world’s sins and atrocities with compassion and understanding. It’s a tale about survival, yes, but not only the heroic kind—the kind that is forced upon victims of genocide. It’s also about the everyday acts of survival we all undertake just to be human: to overlook slights; to rise above bigotry, ignorance and self-doubt; to push for forgiveness even when our instincts urge retribution or bitterness.

“….Sonia’s life story has been called an antidote to the hate and fear we see around us, and we hope that is true. But the real lesson of BIG SONIA is that we’ve all got the capacity to combat the worst of humanity. Like Sonia, we all have the opportunity to create for others the places of comfort and connection where survival takes root.”   – Leah Warshawski 

Don’t miss this movie.  It is appropriate for students Grade 7 and above.  Bring your children, your grandchildren.  Enjoy an evening at the movies like none other.