Israeli attorney Hanna Kaufman's beliefs are challenged when she's appointed to the defense of Selim Bakri. Kaufman, born in the United States to survivors of the Holocaust, has always accepted Israel's right to exist. However, she bears witness to some of its sovereign costs when she meets Bakri, a dispossessed Palestinian man facing serious criminal charges who wants the same thing as his supposed enemies: to reclaim his family home.
Acting
Jill Clayburgh's unraveling — every micro-expression is a political statement.
Direction
Costa-Gavras weaponizes the courtroom as ideology theater.
Writing
Dialogue that dares you to pick a side, then punishes you for trying.
Director
Costa-Gavras
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Costa-Gavras filmed in Israel with government cooperation, then had the film effectively buried there — it screened at Cannes but never found American distribution, making it a ghost in his filmography.
The house at the film's center is based on real Palestinian properties seized under absentee property laws; Hanna's arc mirrors actual Israeli lawyers who defended Palestinians in the 1970s-80s and faced professional exile.
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