Event

Sonny Boy

Sonny Boy
Los Angeles Premiere
Drama/Netherlands/132 minutes/2011
Directed by Maria Peters
Dutch with English subtitles
Official Selection to the 2012 Academy Awards

Offering a sweeping epic encompassing the years 1911-1945, this adaptation of the best-selling novel by Annejet van der Zijl tells the real-life love story of a mixed-race couple and their struggle to survive and help others in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. Free spirit Rika, with four children, leaves her unfaithful husband and in order to survive, she rents out a spare room to the university student Waldemar, a bright young man from Surinam who is suffering deeply in racist Holland. Against all odds, Rika and Waldemar fall in love. They have a son, nicknamed Sonny Boy. As the war breaks out, they start a new life managing a guesthouse and work with the Resistance to provide a hiding place for Hollands persecuted Jews.

Film introduction by actor and Holocaust survivor Curt Lowens.

In partnership with the Righteous Conversations Project, the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland and the LA Polish Film Festival.