The director of an Anne Frank-inspired short film is using humor to appeal to Gen Z. 

The director of an Anne Frank-inspired short film is using humor to appeal to Gen Z. Writer and filmmaker Mickey Rapkin is creating a short film about Frank titled The Anne Frank Gift Shop. But rather than directing the piece from a traditionally tragic perspective, Rapkin realized that he needed to find another approach to catch Gen Z’s attention. Empathy fatigue, a phenomenon that scientists use to describe young gen’s lack of emotion towards tragedy due to constantly being exposed to it, was something that the film had to work around. And indeed, it does—using dark humor and “ulitmately moving turns” to create a short film that would reach Gen Z, the director says he doesn’t care what merchandise is made of Frank “as long as people continue to tell the story.” YPulse’s Media Consumption Monitor shows that only 15% of Gen Z say they watch documentary style content on a weekly basis, so this new approach to historical story telling may be key to getting them interested. (GQ)