HANNA K. - ALFILM Arab Film Festival Berlin

Das sagt der/die Veranstalter:in:

Fiction, director: Costa-Gavras, France 1983, 108 min., En./Arab./Hebrew/Fr. with En. ST

Hanna (Jill Clayburgh) a Jewish lawyer and a child of a Holocaust survivor, comes into conflict with her surroundings, when she decides to defend the case of a young Palestinian (Mohammad Bakri) accused of terrorism and illegal infiltration by Israeli authorities. In the shadow of this mission, Hanna is caught between a rock and a hard place: her commitment to justice on the one hand, and her fears of risking a promising career and bringing her personal life into disarray on the other hand. The personal overlaps with the political. While Hannah remains convinced of her client’s right of residence in his ancestral home, she is pushed to capitulate under public pressure. A courageous drama by the renowned and multi-awarded Greek director Costa-Gavras (known for Z, The Confession and Missing) in the zenith of his cinematic career. Hanna K pioneered in shedding light on the Palestinian cause in international cinema. It was praised by Palestinian thinker and literary critic Edward Said (1935- 2003) for allowing “us to witness the Palestinian quandary as a narratable human history”. The film will be screened in its recently restored version, supported by the French Ministry of Culture and under the direct supervision of Costa-Gavras.