The 86th Academy Awards shone the light on a little film with a huge heart awarding “The Lady In Number 6: Music Saved My Life” the Oscar for Best Short Documentary. On the red carpet in LA at the pre Oscar event for Canadian filmmakers we met director/writer Malcolm Clarke and producer Nicholas Reed. They were distressed at the recent passing of Alice Herz-Sommer on Feb. 13th 2014, the ‘lady’ at the center of their documentary. Alice passed away just a week before the Oscars at the remarkable age of 110. She was the oldest known survivor of the Holocaust. They confessed they had developed such a wonderful rapport with this incredible woman over the course of making this film.

“One of the most inspirational and uplifting stories of the year”

The Lady In Number 6: Music Saved My Life although not financed with Canadian money has a full Canadian team and was produced by Frederic Bohbot and Nicholas Reed with a Montreal based crew. Malcolm Clarke said when he was first asked to make a movie about the Holocaust he was reluctant to revisit this subject but a trip to London, England to meet Alice completely changed his mind.

The 38-minute documentary spotlights Alice Herz-Sommer, a classically trained pianist who was sent to a Nazi concentration camp in 1946. She shares her secrets to longevity, her love of life and her approach to taking a positive attitude no matter how difficult things may seem. The documentary is available on Netflix.

Moira Romano

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