''My Name is Sara'' (also known as ''The Occupation'') is a 2019 American biographical drama film directed by Steven Oritt, starring Zuzanna Surowy, and

Michalina Olszańska Michalina Olszańska (born 29 June 1992) is a Polish actress and writer. She is a daughter of actors Agnieszka Fatyga and Wojciech Olszański. She has published two novels as a teenager. For her role in '' I, Olga Hepnarová'' she received the M ...

. It is based on the life of Holocaust survivor Sara Góralnik.

Cast

* Zuzanna Surowy as Sara * as Pavlo *

as Nadya * as Avram * as Tsivia * as Vira Ivanenko * as Ivan * Konrad Cichon as Moishe * as Grisha * Artur Sokolski as Danylo * Marcin Sokolski as Stepan * as Pavlo's mother * Stanislaw Cywka as Boris * Izabela Dąbrowska as Marina * as Fedir Ivanenko *

Radosław Kaim Radosław Sebastian Kaim (born 7 October 1973) is a Polish actor. Filmography *2000: '' Egoiści'' *2002: '' Jak to się robi z dziewczynami'' *2003: ''Show'' *2007: '' It's a Free World...'' *2010: ''Patagonia'' *2011: '' Waterloo Road'' *201 ...

as German Soldier * as Father Oleksa * as SS Officer * as Captain *

Ryszard Ronczewski Ryszard Ronczewski (27 June 1930 – 17 October 2020) was a Polish actor. He appeared in more than seventy films from 1954 to 2021 (the premiere of '' The Wedding'' occurred a few months after his death). Ronczewski died from COVID-19 on 17 Octo ...

as Pavlo's Father

Release

The film premiered at the

Giffoni Film Festival The Giffoni International Film Festival is an Italian children's film festival which takes place annually in Giffoni Valle Piana, Campania. It began in 1971. The Giffoni International Film Festival typically has around 100,000 guests and has had ...

on 21 July 2019.

Reception

Matt Zoller Seitz Matt Zoller Seitz (born December 26, 1968) is an American film and television critic, author and film-maker. Career Matt Zoller Seitz is editor-at-large at RogerEbert.com, and the television critic for '' New York'' magazine and Vulture.com, as ...

of ''

RogerEbert.com ''RogerEbert.com'' is an American film review website that archives reviews written by film critic Roger Ebert for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' and also shares other critics' reviews and essays. The website, underwritten by the ''Chicago Sun-Times' ...

'' rated the film 3.5 stars out of 4 and called it a "torment in cinematic form, made engrossing by its focus on a singular experience, and the performance that anchors it", writing that Surowy "has that gift of letting the surroundings and events absorb and reflect her." Gary Goldstein of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' wrote that the film "has its share of physically and emotionally tough moments", and called Surowy's performance "gripping, deeply textured and sympathetic". Ben Kenigsberg of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' called the film "intermittently powerful if somewhat stiff-jointed" and wrote that it can be "clunkily expository" and "frustratingly vague."

References

External links

* * {{rotten-tomatoes, my_name_is_sara, My Name is Sara American biographical drama films 2019 biographical drama films