TORONTO – On the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2026, on Tuesday, January 27 at 7:00 PM, Toronto will host the screening of the documentary Liliana, directed by Ruggero Gabbai, dedicated to the life and testimony of Italian Senator for Life Liliana Segre. The event will take place at the Miles Nadal JCC – Al Green Theatre (750 Spadina Avenue) and is free of charge (registration required, here).
The evening is presented by the Embassy of Italy in Canada, the Consulate General of Italy in Toronto, the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Toronto, the Miles Nadal JCC, and ICFF – Italian Contemporary Film Festival, confirming a shared institutional commitment to promoting historical memory through the language of cinema.
Opening remarks will be delivered by H.E. Alessandro Cattaneo, Ambassador of Italy to Canada, and Dr. Alberta Lai, Director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Toronto. A discussion with the audience will follow the screening.
Liliana is an intense and multi-layered documentary that retraces the testimony of Liliana Segre, a survivor of Nazi concentration camps: from her arrest and deportation to Auschwitz at the age of 13, to the heartbreaking farewell to her father. Through a skillful interplay between past and present, the film builds the portrait of one of the most authoritative and significant figures in contemporary Italian civic and political life.
Alongside the historical reconstruction, the film reveals lesser-known aspects of the Senator, portraying her as a modern woman deeply committed to passing on to younger generations a message of freedom, equality, and civic responsibility. Her story is told through the voices of her children and grandchildren, as well as prominent figures from the cultural and journalistic worlds such as Ferruccio De Bortoli, Mario Monti, Geppi Cucciari, Fabio Fazio, and Enrico Mentana, together with the Carabinieri officers of her security detail, who help shape an intimate and authentic portrait.
The documentary also addresses the crucial issue of the transmission of trauma and the importance of how History is told and preserved. Central to the film is the use of the archive of the CDEC – Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea (Centre for Contemporary Jewish Documentation), which preserves interviews and materials—some previously unpublished—starting with Liliana Segre’s first testimony in 1994. “I remained silent for 45 years – Segre says in the documentary – … there was something inside me that said ‘that’s enough’… no one will understand, no one will understand… and I don’t really want the people I love to understand, because I leave behind a terrible legaly…”.
With Liliana, Ruggero Gabbai—one of the most important contemporary Italian documentary filmmakers—confirms his commitment to recounting the memory of the Shoah and its implications for the present, offering audiences a work of profound civic and emotional depth.
“The film – Gabbai writes in the Director’s notes – all sets out to be a true and intense fresco of an Italy that, thanks to the figure of Liliana Segre, shows its redemption, questioning itself on the complexity of the tragedy of the war and of the betrayal of a country towards a part of its citizens by Fascism; showing the pain and suffering of a wound that has never completely healed…”.
Here below is the trailer of the documentary featuring excerpts from interviews with Liliana Segre (with English subtitles)
