AllMovie

While the anti-Semitic poison of the Third Reich spread through much of Europe as Nazi forces took hold during World War II, there were a few pockets of resistance, and one of the most remarkable (and least-known) stories concerns the people of Bulgaria, one of the only Nazi-occupied countries where the majority of the Jewish population lived to see the end of the war. The Optimists is a documentary that explains how 50,000 Bulgarian Jews were saved from the Nazi death camps by underground resistance forces and the selfless acts of many brave individuals. Directed by Jacky Comforty, The Optimists received an Honorable Mention as Best Peace Film at the 2001 Berlin International Film Festival; incidentally, the name comes from a jazz combo formed in America by Bulgarian Jews who escaped to freedom in the West.