Over the years, both institutions have worked together to highlight some of the most significant Italian, or Italian-related, films that have dealt with themes of Judaism, antisemitism and the Holocaust.
Though the JIFF was postponed in 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions, the 2022 program features a screening of Stephen Edwards’ film, Syndrome K.
Released in 2019, the Italo-American co-production feature film tells the true story of events that occurred between 1943 and 1944, during the Nazi occupation of Rome.
Three brave Italian doctors saved the lives of many Jewish people by convincing the Nazis that patients in the Fatebenefratelli hospital, just a stone’s throw from the Vatican, had been infected with a deadly disease called “Syndrome K”.
This completely fictious disease allowed the doctors to deter Nazi inspectors from interrogating and removing Jewish patients, as they were afraid of how contagious the illness was made out to be.
Syndrome K features interviews with survivors and their descendants, including 98-year-old Adriano Ossicini, the last surviving doctor, and Pietro Borromeo, the son of the hospital’s chief physician.
The documentary will be presented by Associate Professor Jane Mills, a film critic and cinematography expert who lectures at the University of New South Wales.
“Syndrome K tells such an amazing, little-known story,” Mills said.
“Seeing and hearing from some of the survivors, their children and relatives, along with the brave doctors themselves, restores my faith in humankind; there aren’t enough adjectives to describe how great they were.
“When something happens that’s so extraordinary that it feels like fiction, only a documentary’s special relationship with reality can be believed.”
The documentary will be screened on March 29 at the Ritz Cinemas in Randwick.
For more information, visit the website.
