Kapò

Kapò is a 1960 historical war drama film directed and co-written by Gillo Pontecorvo. It was one of the first narrative films to deal explicitly with the subject of the Holocaust, with graphic depictions of concentration camps which made it controversial at the time. A co-production of Italian, French, and Yugoslavian companies, the film stars American actress Susan Strasberg, along with Laurent Terzieff, Emmanuelle Riva, Didi Perego and Gianni Garko. The title refers to a prisoner functionary in the Nazi concentration camps. The film premiered at the 21st Venice International Film Festival, and was released to Italian theatres on September 29, 1960. It received mixed reviews from critics. While some praised the filmmaking, others, particularly Jacques Rivette, criticized Pontecorvo's decision to dramatize the Holocaust, unprecedented at the time. In the United States, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film. Plot Edith, a naïve 14-year-old French Jew living in Paris, and her parents are sent to a concentration camp, where the latter are killed. Sofia, an older, political prisoner, and a kindly camp doctor save her from a similar fate by giving her a new, non-Jewish identity, that of the newly dead Nicole Niepas. As time goes by, she becomes hardened to the brutal life. She first sells her body to a German guard in return for food. She becomes fond of another guard, Karl. The fraternization helps her become a kapo, one of those put in charge of the other prisoners. She thrives while the idealistic Sofia grows steadily weaker.