"Hana K", the movie that the Jewish "lobby" fought in Hollywood and stopped its screening in support of Palestine

In 1983, the American film "Hanna K" was shown after many reservations, and it was quickly withdrawn from cinemas after it raised many objections, and did not even get enough publicity.

The company refused to advertise it, or even give the advertising material prepared for it to its director, Costa Gavras, who was forced to advertise it on his personal account in The New York Times for $ 50,000.

The important question remains: Why did the film raise so much discontent and fear?

Why is it regarded as one of the angry films to this day, in which any attempt to review it has so many reservations?

The answer is: "Palestine," or the film's theme that Gavras raised so boldly that the Western media could not accept it.

Hannah and the Palestinian Question

The events of the movie "Hana K" revolve around an American Jewish lawyer who lives in occupied Palestine, and one day she defends a Palestinian youth infiltrating an area under Israeli control. Once again to defend him after he returned to the same area where he was arrested before.

This fervent desire of the young man, whose exposure to the end of his life aroused Hanna's curiosity, so she hears his story, and goes on a trip to his old city, on which the Israelis demolished most of its homes and established settlements on it, and changed its name from "Kfar Rummana" to "Kfar Rayman", and she actually finds his family's old home. Which has been turned into a tourist attraction.

Hence, the journey of Hana and Cheb Salim begins, where she is instituting a lawsuit with the aim of returning him to his family's home, which owns his deeds, and here it clashes with the Israeli judiciary, because its victory in this case simply means the defeat of the Zionist logic on which their state is based, which wrested land rights from the hands of The indigenous population, and begins a series of Palestinian demands to recover their homes from which they abandoned a palace despite their possession of their official documents and papers, so this issue should have been aborted.

Besides this main line, we find another line related to the character of "Hana", who lives in a personal conflict, and lies in confusion between her ex-husband and the public prosecutor, with whom she established a short relationship with him that quickly ended, but he remained attached to her, which made his harsh confrontation with her in the court yard of the Saleem case. It is not only due to political grudges, but also emotional ones.

Why did he spark controversy?

Costa Gavras is known for his clear political views that influence his films. Among his most famous works are "Z", which deals with a true political assassination story, and won an Oscar for best foreign language film, and "Missing" which won the Palme d'Or and Best Adapted Screenplay award. Which provoked the US collusion with the Chilean coup government to the point of ignoring the American victims who were there during the violence.

"Hana" is another political statement by Costa Gavras, this time on the Palestinian issue, at a time when the features were blurred in the West;

The film is indisputably sympathetic to the Palestinians who were displaced from their land and occupied by the Israelis.

This appears from the beginning with the scene of the lawyer looking for the village of her client, "Kafr Rummana," holding a map in her hand that proves that the history of the village is more than 500 years, in the face of an Israeli soldier who denies its existence, and then the following scenes when she saw the house of the Palestinian Salim, and the place where his family abandoned To him before the death of his mother.

It also appears in the drawing of the characters, especially the characters of Slim, Joshua, the Attorney General, and Hana's ex-boyfriend, as they are on opposite sides.

Between Saleem's calm even during his imprisonment and his defense of his right, and his resort to a hunger strike, and between Joshua's violence that appears in his anger at Hannah for accepting the case, and his attempts to persuade her to give up attempts to help her client, in addition to his resorting to trick more than once to control Hannah, manipulate her ideas and threaten her with her son .

What also sparked controversy was Gavras's portrayal of occupied Palestine as not a safe place or the promised paradise of the Jews as it was promoted in the West at that time, there is an intense security presence in all places, which makes the lives of Jewish civilians certainly uncomfortable, in addition to the constant threats to their lives, And this appeared in multiple scenes;

The most important of these is the scene of the beach, where the lawyer is relaxing with her friends, so that we find that even a place of recreation must be secured by soldiers from the Israeli army.

The controversy over the film began even before filming, as the pro-Israel groups were concerned about the film, and notes were submitted to explain the arguments for stopping filming, and upon its presentation was attacked with a lot of negative comments before it was withdrawn from the theaters, and many critics attacked it, and it was not nominated for any Oscars in American awards season, but on the other hand it was shown at the Venice Film Festival and nominated for the Golden Lion.