The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation will hold its first annual Anti-Communist Film Festival in Washington, D.C., from Oct. 1 through Oct. 4.
The multiday event will take place at the Victims of Communism Museum, located two blocks from the White House, and will feature films focused on life under communist regimes and resistance to political repression.
Organizers said the festival will include movies intended for a range of audiences and age groups.
The opening film, Pilecki’s Report, is scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 1, at 6 p.m.
The film tells the story of Witold Pilecki, a Polish army officer and resistance member who volunteered to infiltrate the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. Pilecki gathered intelligence from inside the camp and helped provide Allied governments with early eyewitness accounts of the atrocities taking place there.
The festival will continue Friday, Oct. 2, at 6 p.m. with The Killing Fields, the 1984 historical drama directed by Roland Joffé and produced by David Puttnam.
The film follows New York Times journalist Sydney Schanberg and Cambodian journalist Dith Pran during the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia.
After the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh in 1975, Cambodia entered a period of mass executions, forced labor, starvation and political repression.
Sam Waterston portrayed Schanberg, while Cambodian physician Haing S. Ngor played Pran. Ngor, who personally survived the Khmer Rouge regime, won an Academy Award for his performance.
The film received three Academy Awards and became one of the best-known cinematic portrayals of the Cambodian genocide and the experiences of those who lived under the Khmer Rouge.
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation describes the festival as an effort to highlight both the experiences of people living under communist governments and those who resisted them.
Additional films are scheduled during the four-day festival, which concludes Oct. 4.
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