My Name Is Sara

I loved everything about about this poignant, true story of SARA GÓRALNIK! I went to a webinar about how the movie was developed and filmed. It was painful for the real Sara Goralnik to talk about her life, but the film had voice. I felt it told the true story. The lead actress Zuzanna Surowy was chosen to play the part of Sara even though she had no prior professional acting experience and was in high school. Her portrayal showed exquisite depth. The other roles were well cast and realistically depicted. The characters were not admirable, but the actors showed that peer pressure and flaws of moral judgment cause people to act with disrespect, selfishness, and lack of empathy. Yet, at times you could see a moment of kindness in people who controlled Sara's life. Suzanna portrayed the inner strength of the real Sara who had promised her parents to survive. The cinematography was artfully and beautifully done. I am not a film critic, but I am a film lover. This movie told a story that needs to be experienced again and again so that the horrors of the Holocaust will "never again" happen!!! I highly recommend seeing it...I will never forget "My Name is Sara!"

Outstanding sweep of the complexities of surviving in wartime. The fact that it is a true story adds needed perspective to how vulnerable everyone is when mad men reign. Particularly touching as we consider the current Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. I recommend this to everyone!

My Name Is Sara (2019) was directed by Steven Oritt. It stars Zuzanna Surowy as Sara. Sara is from Poland. Her family is destroyed by the German occupiers, but she manages to escape over the border into Ukraine.

Sara is able to convince the farmers that she's Christian. (It's not clear whether they believe her, or whether they just need another farmhand.)

This is more than just a survival movie. The farmers are not just a downtrodden mass of people under attack by the Germans and the partisans, both of whom want the food from their farm. Relationships are complex and every action is fraught with danger.

Zuzanna Surowy's performance is amazing. You really believe her as a brave young woman who promises her mother that she will survive the Holocaust. I was surprised to learn that Surowy wasn't a professional. She's a first-time actor who still manages to carry the film forward.

My Name is Sara has an appalling IMDb rating of 6.4. This is one of the films about which I write, "Did those people see the same movie that I saw?" I consider the film to be outstanding, and rated it 9.

We watched this movie virtually,, courtesy of the excellent Rochester Jewish Film Festival.

The film portrays the survival story of young Sara, portrayed with subtle intensity by Zuzanna Surowy. Amongst the horrors of the Nazi occupation, and the ferocious Jews persecution in the Ukraine the protagonist manages to escape pretending to be a gentile. The peasant she shelters with are not good or altruistic, they are just downtrodden people, fiercely attached to their land and traditions. While the cinematography and the direction is passable but not memorable and the story line somehow mundane, probably the better aspect of the production reside in the depiction of the local peasant society, of their perennial straggle against whatever power exploit them and their self-reliance. People that cannot afford to be generous or open-minded. There are only few acts of genuine altruism and many more of the opposite but the unsentimental and non-judgmental approach to the storytelling is refreshing, leaving the viewer to make up its mind on the grey morality of the real world.

Enjoyable film, the hole film is good and keeps you focused , based on a true story as well ,,,its mind blowing.