Leslie Hope: Last News

Aramide Tinubu The story of Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager who hid in a cramped attic with her family during the Nazi occupation in Amsterdam, is widely known, and amid the atrocities of the Holocaust, Anne’s diary presents a story of resilience and unrealized dreams. Nat Geo’s new limited series “A Small Light” isn’t Anne’s story, though the precocious teen’s legacy is embedded throughout. The brainchild of former “Grey’s Anatomy” showrunners Tony Phelan and Joan Rater, the series is a tale of resistance, activism and humanity. The narrative centers on one tenacious young woman, Miep Gies, Otto Frank’s secretary, who risked everything to save the Frank family, and countless others. Beautifully shot by Phelan, Susanna Fogel and Leslie Hope, with a slight sepia tone to ground the audience in the time period, the series opens on July 6, 1942, when the Frank family goes into hiding. Miep (Bel Powley) is tasked with getting Otto’s (Liev Schreiber) eldest daughter Margot (Ashley Brooke) through a Nazi checkpoint and into the secret annex above the office building where Miep and Otto work. Quick thinking and determined, Miep ushers the teen to safety via bicycle past the gun-toting and cruel German soldiers. It’s the first of many risks she takes to combat the racist, authoritarian regime.

Marta Balaga Miep Gies, as well as her husband Jan, helped hide Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis in Amsterdam, she also saved the girl’s diary. But she never considered herself a hero. “She didn’t want to be put on a pedestal. Her mantra was: ‘I just did what human beings are supposed to do and helped someone in need,’” Bel Powley, who plays Gies in National Geographic series “A Small Light,” said Saturday at Canneseries. The international premiere of the first episode screened at the international series festival in Cannes, followed by an on-stage discussion. Amira Casar, “Peaky Blinders” alumnus Joe Cole, Liev Schreiber and Billie Boullet also star in the eight-episode show, which was co-created by Tony Phelan and Joan Rater.