“It’s not a show about the Holocaust,” insists Hagai Levi, the creator of Etty which world premieres out of competition at the Venice Film Festival – even though the six-part series is set in Amsterdam between 1941-1943 during the Nazi occupation and its real-life titular heroine died in Auschwitz.

Shot in Dutch and German, the loose adaptation of the diaries of Dutch author Etty Hillesum chronicles the 27-year-old’s spiritual awakening during the German occupation before her deportation and death. Her diaries were published 40 years later and have been translated into more than 20 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide.

Julia Windischbauer stars as Etty and Sebastian Koch as therapist Julius Spier, with whom she has a passionate love affair that sparks her transformation.

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