“You live with it all your life and you can never forget. I would catch myself laughing and feel guilty,” says the titular character of “Big Sonia” in a new trailer for Leah Warshawski’s award-winning documentary. Sonia Warshawski is a great-grandmother, businesswoman, and Holocaust survivor.
As Sonia explains in the spot, keeping busy helps keep her thoughts away from her painful history, but when she’s served an eviction notice for her tailoring business, “the specter of retirement prompts Sonia to revisit her harrowing past as a refugee and witness to genocide,” the film’s official synopsis details.
“If I reach one heart, I accomplished something,” Sonia emphasizes. And it’s clear that she’s reached many hearts. “It takes people who’ve been through something to reach people who are going through something,” a man in prison says in the spot.
“Sonia is an engaging character in a dying generation. She can draw audiences in to larger, universal themes. She also happens to be my grandmother,” Warshawski told us.
Described as “a poignant story of generational trauma and healing,” “Big Sonia” has taken home over a dozen awards on the festival circuit, including the Barcelona International Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. The doc hits theaters November 17.
