Harvey Keitel, Melanie Lynskey, Jonah Hauer-King lead Sky’s The Tattooist of Auschwitz

FIRST LOOK: Harvey Keitel, Melanie Lynskey, Jonah Hauer-King, Anna Próchniak and Jonas Nay star in The Tattooist of Auschwitz, launching on Sky Atlantic this May.

The six-part series is based on the book of the same name by Heather Morris, and is inspired by the real-life story of Lali and Gita Sokolov, who met while prisoners at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during the Holocaust.

Lali (Hauer-King) is a Slovakian Jew who, in 1942, was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the camp where more than a million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.

Shortly after arrival, he was made one of the Tätowierer (tattooists), charged to ink identification numbers onto fellow prisoners’ arms. One day, he meets Gita (Próchniak) when tattooing her prisoner number on her arm.

They experience love at first sight, and so begins a courageous, unforgettable and human story. Under constant guard from a volatile Nazi SS officer Baretzki (Nay), Lali and Gita became determined to keep each other alive.

Around 60 years later, Lali (Keitel) meets novice writer Heather Morris (Lynskey). Recently widowed, Lali finds the courage to tell the world his story. In recounting his story to Heather, Lali, in his 80s, faces the traumatic ghosts of his youth and relives his memories of falling in love in the most horrific of places.

The series is written by Jacquelin Perske (The Cry) and directed by Tali Shalom-Ezer, with a score is composed by Hans Zimmer (Inception, Interstellar) and Kara Talve (Faraway Downs).

It is produced by Synchronicity Films (The Cry) in association with Sky Studios, and distributed by NBCUniversal Global TV Distribution and All3Media International.

The series will debut on Sky Atlantic in the UK & Ireland, Italy, German, Austria and Switzerland, and Peacock in the US on May 2.

Other buyers include Stan in Australia and Sky Showtime in the Nordics (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland), the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the Netherlands and Poland.

tagged in: Anna Próchniak, Harvey Keitel, Heather Morris, Jacquelin Perske, Jonah Hauer-King, Jonas Nay, Melanie Lynskey, Sky, Syncronicity Films, The Tattooist of Auschwitz