A Small Light, a new Disney+ miniseries about the woman who sheltered Anne Frank’s family for more than two years during WWII and preserved Anne’s dairy for later publication, will begin production in Prague and Amsterdam later this summer, reports Deadline.
Produced by National Geographic for the Disney+ streaming service, A Small Light tells the story of Miep Gies, an employee and confidant of businessman Otto Frank who took on the responsibility of sheltering him and his family during the Holocaust.
The story of the Frank family has been told through numerous film and TV adaptations since Anne Frank’s diary was first published in 1947, but A Small Light will be one of the few to focus on those who sheltered them in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.
Liev Schreiber will star as Otto Frank, the patriarch of the family and its only member to survive the events of the war. Schreiber is no stranger to filming in Prague; he shot the 2005 drama Everything Is Illuminated in the Czech Republic, which stood in for locations in Ukraine.
Bel Powley (The Morning Show, White Boy Rick) will star as Miep, with Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders, Secret in Their Eyes) playing her husband Jan Gies. After the Frank family was sent to concentration camps, Miep preserved Anne’s diary, which was published after the war by her father.
Additional members of the cast, including Anne Frank, sister Margot, and mother Edith, have yet to be announced.
Miep Gies died in 2010 at the age of 100. A Small Light’s title comes from a quote she gave later in life:
“I don’t like being called a hero because no one should ever think you have to be special to help others. Even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can turn on a small light in a dark room.”
Joan Rater and Tony Phelan, who previously worked together on Grey’s Anatomy, will serve as lead writers and showrunners for A Small Light. Susanna Fogel (The Spy Who Dumped Me) will direct several episodes, including the pilot.
Prague locations to be utilized in A Small Light have not been confirmed, but both studio production and exterior filming on the streets of the Czech capital, filling in for WWII-era Amsterdam, are likely.
A Small Light will be the second Anne Frank miniseries to shoot in Prague. Anne Frank: The Whole Story, starring Ben Kingsley as Otto Frank and Lili Taylor as Miep Gies, was filmed in the Czech capital in 2001.
Look for A Small Light to premiere on Disney+ in early-to-mid 2023.
Lead photo: Bel Powely in The Morning Show, Liev Schreiber in Ray Donovan
One Response
We just watched this miniseries and found it absolutely riveting. A Small Light is an angle to the Anne Frank story that I never knew about, and a thrilling true story that rises above what some might assume is just a somber drama. I know Disney isn’t known for stuff like this, but it seems to have gotten lost in the streaming shuffle, which is a real shame as this is an excellent minisereis.