Production on the Disney+ and National Geographic miniseries A Small Light began last month in Prague and is scheduled to run through the end of October. The miniseries has been shooting on location in the center of the Czech capital over the course of the past month.
A Small Light is based on the true story of Miep Gies, who together with husband Jan Gies sheltered Anne Frank and her family for more than two years during WWII, and preserved Anne’s diary for later publication.
Bel Powley (The Morning Show) stars in A Small Light as Miep Gies, with Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders) playing her husband Jan. Liev Schreiber stars as Otto Frank, Miep Gies’ boss before the war and the only member of the Frank family to survive the concentration camps.
After the war, Gies turned over Anne’s diary to Otto, who worked the rest of his life to publish and promote Anne’s diary to tell the world his daughter’s story in her own words. Anne’s diary has been published in 70 languages and turned into numerous plays, films, and TV productions; it’s widely considered one of the most important books of the 20th century.
A Small Light will also star Billie Boullet (The Worst Witch) as Anne Frank, Ashley Brooke (The Blacklist) as her sister Margot, and Amira Casar (The Contractor) as their mother Edith. Susanna Fogel (The Spy Who Dumped Me) will direct multiple episodes of the eight-episode miniseries, from a script by series writers and showrunners Joan Rater and Tony Phelan (Grey’s Anatomy).
Production on A Small Light began in the Czech Republic in early July, with its Prague shoot slated to run through October. Filming for the miniseries will also take place on location in Amsterdam.
During the first week of filming, star Liev Schreiber took a break to appear at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where he spoke about the war in Ukraine and the BlueCheck Ukraine humanitarian organization, of which he is a co-founder.
Schreiber, who is of Ukranian heritage, is no stranger to Prague: as a director, he shot 2005’s Everything is Illuminated in the Czech Republic. Czech locations stood in for those in Ukraine in the coming-of-age drama, which starred Elijah Wood as a American citizen who visits Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather during WWII.
In-between filming A Small Light in Prague, Schreiber has also recently traveled to Ukraine, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
A post shared by Liev Schreiber (@lievschreiber)
As an actor, Schreiber also shot the 2003 TV miniseries Hitler: The Rise of Evil and the 2006 remake of The Omen in Prague.
A Small Light is currently one of three large foreign productions being shot in Prague’s city center, alongside the fourth season of the German TV series Das Boot and the new reboot of The Crow directed by Rupert Sanders and starring Bill Skarsgård.
Over the past month, scenes for A Small Light have shot in various areas of Prague 1, including Old Town, Josefov, and Malá Strana, which will all presumably stand in for WWII-era Amsterdam. Production on the series will continue in the Czech capital over the next three months before wrapping on October 27.
A Small Light is being produced for the streaming service Disney+ in cooperation with National Geographic. Look for it to premiere in mid-to-late 2023.
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