Agnieszka Holland talks about filming In Darkness

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Polish director Agnieszka Holland had already shot two Holocaust films – Angry Harvest and Europa Europa, both Oscar-nominees – when another bleak script about the Nazi genocide crossed her desk. In Darkness, by first-time Toronto screenwriter David Shamoon, is the true story of a dozen Jews who hid in the sewers of Lvov (now Lviv, in Ukraine), for 14 months, aided by an unlikely hero, Leopold Socha, a Polish-Catholic sanitation worker and part-time thief.

Holland turned the script down twice – first because she didn't want to sink into the dark subject matter (she got over that), and second because the producers wanted to shoot in English. The director was adamant her characters had to speak Polish, Yiddish, German and Ukrainian. Eventually, Holland got her way – and now the Canada-Poland-German co-production is up for an Academy Award for best foreign film.

Other surprises have emerged. Holland was told that all the survivors of Lvov's sewers were now dead, but then she learned about Kristine Chiger, now 76, after the film was done. The pair met at last September's Toronto International Film Festival and, in separate interviews, discussed their experiences making the film, and how important it was to both women that the characters – both Jews and non-Jews – had virtues and flaws.

Agnieszka, you balked at jumping back into the Holocaust genre. What changed your mind?

Holland: I read David [Shamoon]s script, which he wrote on spec, and thought it was much better – deeper and more intriguing – than most of the Holocaust stories that come across my table.

The script doesn't pull any punches, portraying the Jews in the story as deceitful and as morally ambiguous as Socha. Why was that essential to this story?

Holland: Every human being – regardless of where they come from – can be very virtuous or very flawed. I was trying to show the complexity of the human condition. Very few people are only bad (well, psychopaths maybe). And very few are only good (saints maybe). I was fascinated by how I would have behaved in the moment if faced with Socha's choice. And I honestly tell you I cannot answer that question.

Why have you said In Darkness was the most difficult film you've ever made?

Holland: It was because of the winter. Because of the sewers. Because the budget (roughly $4-million Euros) was too small for a story as complicated and complex as this. It's less than an average American TV series. We had children on set all the time. The lighting – and there is very little of it – had to be very precise. We had several producers from three countries, and the co-producers from Germany and Poland started to fight very quickly, so it was tense. Also, when you tackle this type of subject matter, you are never happy. Afterward, I needed a long vacation.

Kristine, you wrote a memoir about your ordeal called The Girl in the Green Sweater. Did Holland do justice to your story?

Chiger: The movie is very real. Everything that is shot in the movie happened. The first time I saw it was at the Toronto International Film Festival, and I was both relieved and incredibly moved. I always wanted a director with a European sensibility to possibly tell the story. I did not want some Hollywood version. Agnieszka told the good and the ugly, which is what really happened. A woman did give birth in the tunnels, and strangled it to stop its cries. My brother and I did play with rats. They were our favourite pets.

The film is a weird mix of horrifying and hopeful. Did you feel those two things in the sewers?

Chiger: I was actually happier in the sewer than I was above ground when the Germans were liquidating the ghetto. My parents had to be in two different places, and I was alone with my little brother, taking care of him. We had to hide or we'd be killed. I was like an animal. In the sewers, I was with my parents – we were together – which was much better for me. I wasn't the one who had to make the decisions and take responsibility of my brother. But I was terrified to go down into the sewers the first time. It was so dark and the noise of falling water could drive you mad. One night, we had a flash flood and my father had to hoist us above his head. The water was at his chin. I remember Socha thought for sure we were dead. When he came down after the storm passed, and saw the light, he couldn't believe it.

How did you feel about Socha, who risked his own family to protect you?

Chiger: He died in 1945, one year after we got out. He was walking on the sidewalk with his daughter and a drunk driver hit him. We would not have lived without him. On the date of his death, we put a candle out every year and pray for his soul. He was an angel for me.

You've lived in Long Island (now a retired dentist) with your husband and two sons since 1968. Is your past ever behind you?

Chiger. I've never been to a psychologist or had any psychotherapy. The scar lives with me. I will never forget. But I want life to go forward.

This interview has been edited and condensed.