WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Hollywood actress Jessica Chastain and the female director of her new movie are celebrating both the strength and the tenderness of women.
Chastain, director Niki Caro, and other actors were in Warsaw Tuesday for a gala screening of the movie "The Zookeeper's Wife." It tells the real-life story of the wartime director of the Warsaw zoo, Jan Zabinski, and of his wife Antonina, who jointly saved up to 300 Jews, hiding them in their home and in animal enclosures, risking their own lives and those of their children. It opens in theaters March 31.
Two-time Academy Award nominee Chastain, who plays Antonina Zabinska, told a news conference she felt "so inspired" by this story of human kindness "that we need so much today."
She said she portrays a fragile woman, depending on her husband, who grows independent and becomes her husband's equal through her responsibility for the people she is sheltering from death.
Caro said the Zabinskis did the right thing at a challenging time, which should be an encouragement to all to "stand up, to act."
Both said they will walk in a march to mark International Women's Day in Warsaw on Wednesday. Actors Daniel Bruhl and Johan Heldenbergh, who also star in the movie, said they will join them.
The movie is based on a book by American author Diane Ackerman, published in 2007, which revealed the story to the world.