Hanna's War is a 1988 film co-written and directed by Menahem Golan

Menahem Golan

Menahem Golan is an Israeli director and producer. He has produced movies for such stars as Sean Connery, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Charles Bronson, and was known for a period as a producer of comic book-style movies like Masters of the Universe, Superman IV:...

. The film is based on The Diaries Of Hanna Senesh and the biographical novel

Biographical novel

The biographical novel is a genre of novel which provides a fictional and usually entertaining account of a person's life. This kind of novel concentrates on the experiences a person had during his lifetime, the people he met and the incidents which occurred are detailed and sometimes...

 A Great Wind Cometh by Yoel Palgi. It is a biopic detailing the true story of Hannah Szenes

Hannah Szenes

Hannah Szenes , often anglicized as Hannah Senesh was a Hungarian Jew, one of 37 Jews from the British Mandate for Palestine that were trained by the British army to parachute into Yugoslavia during the Second World War in order to help save the Jews of Hungary, who were about to be deported to...

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Plot

Hannah Senesh was a real-life Hungarian Jew who became a martyr to the cause of freedom during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Though safely living in Palestine at the start of the war, Hannah volunteers to venture behind enemy lines in Europe knowing that in all likelihood, she will die. Unfortunately, she is captured, undergoing horrendous tortures before the Germans kill her.

Principal cast

Actor	Role
Ellen Burstyn Ellen Burstyn Ellen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...	Katalin
Maruschka Detmers Maruschka Detmers Maruschka Detmers is a Dutch actress. She moved to France as a teenager, where she captured the attention of director Jean-Luc Godard. In 1983, she made her dramatic debut under Godard's direction in Prénom Carmen...	Hanna Hannah Szenes Hannah Szenes , often anglicized as Hannah Senesh was a Hungarian Jew, one of 37 Jews from the British Mandate for Palestine that were trained by the British army to parachute into Yugoslavia during the Second World War in order to help save the Jews of Hungary, who were about to be deported to...
Anthony Andrews Anthony Andrews -Life and career:Andrews was born in London, the son of Geraldine Agnes , a dancer, and Stanley Thomas Andrews, a musical arranger and musical conductor. He grew up in the North Finchley district of London...	McCormack
Donald Pleasence Donald Pleasence Sir Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE, was a British actor who gained more than 200 screen credits during a career which spanned over four decades...	Captain Thomas Rosza
David Warner David Warner (actor) David Warner is an English actor who is known for playing both romantic leads and sinister or villainous characters, both in film and animation...	Captain Julian Simon
Vincent Riotta Vincent Riotta Vincent Riotta is an English-born stage and film actor of Italian descent. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He went on to perform in various stage plays, such as Shakespeare's Romeo, which was held at the Young Vic, Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, held at the Leicester...	Yoel
Avi Korein Avi Korein Avi Korein is a security specialist and owner of Screen International Security Services in Los Angeles. The Israeli bouncer-turned-bodyguard has provided security services for Bruce Willis and, since about 1996, Mel Gibson....	Eliyahu Golomb Eliyahu Golomb Eliyahu Golomb was the leader of the Jewish defense effort in Mandate Palestine and chief architect of the Haganah, the underground military organization for defense of the Yishuv between 1920 and 1948.-Early life:...
Ingrid Pitt Ingrid Pitt Ingrid Pitt was an actress best known for her work in horror films of the 1960s and 1970s.-Background:Pitt was born Ingoushka Petrov in Warsaw, Poland to a German father of Russian descent and a Polish Jewish mother. During World War II she and her family were imprisoned in a concentration camp...	Margit
John Stride John Stride John Stride is an English actor best known for his television work during the 1970s. Stride was born in London, the son of Margaret and Alfred Teneriffe Stride...	Dr. Komoly
Shimon Finkel	David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...

DVD and VHS availability

Although the film has not been released on DVD, the VHS version is available for sale at sites such as Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

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External links

• Film trailer for Hanna's War