With Miss Sloane arriving this Thanksgiving (our AFI Fest review), it provides the ideal platform to preview the next starring role for Jessica Chastain, so Focus Features have released the first trailer for The Zookeeper’s Wife. Directed by Niki Caro (Whale Rider) as adapted by Angela Workman from the Diane Ackerman book, the true story follows Chastain’s character who is in charge of the Warsaw Zoo during World War II and ends up working with the Resistance.
“It was a wonderful story about not only animal nature vs. human nature but about radical compassion and humanity,” Caro tells USA Today. “The Zabinskis sheltered Jews at tremendous risk to themselves for a very simple reason: because it was the right thing to do.” Also starring Johan Heldenbergh, Michael McElhatton, and Daniel Brühl, check out the trailer below.
The real-life story of one working wife and mother who became a hero to hundreds during World War II. In 1939 Poland, Antonina Żabińska (portrayed by two-time Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain) and her husband, Dr. Jan Żabiński (Johan Heldenbergh of “The Broken Circle Breakdown”), have the Warsaw Zoo flourishing under his stewardship and her care. When their country is invaded by the Nazis, Jan and Antonina are stunned – and forced to report to the Reich’s newly appointed chief zoologist, Lutz Heck (Daniel Brühl of “Captain America: Civil War”). To fight back on their own terms, Antonina and Jan covertly begin working with the Resistance – and put into action plans to save lives out of what has become the Warsaw Ghetto, with Antonina putting herself and even her children at great risk.
The Zookeeper’s Wife opens on March 31, 2017.