Williamsburg Regional Library

Big Sonia

eng

videorecording

Big Sonia

Originally produced by Bayview Entertainment in 2016

93

For years, Sonia Warshawski (92) has been an inspirational public speaker at schools and prisons, where her stories of surviving the Holocaust as a teenager have inspired countless people who once felt their own traumas would leave them broken forever. But when Sonia is served an eviction notice for her iconic tailor shop, she's confronted with an agonizing decision: either open up a new shop or retire. Ironically, Sonia's shop is the last open business in an otherwise desolate Kansas City mall, but it contains enough color and liveliness to make up for the entire empty complex. For a woman who admits she stays busy "to keep the dark parts away," facing retirement dredges up fears she'd long forgot she had, and her horrific past resurfaces. BIG SONIA explores what it means to be a survivor and how intergenerational trauma affects families and generations. Winner of Best Documentary at the **Cleveland International Film Festival** and at the **Napa Valley Film Festival**. *"A visual reminder of time's arrow and other, more important losses." - Chris Packham, **L.A. Weekly***

live action