Inside Hana's Suitcase Film

The award winning, best-selling and much beloved children's book Hana's Suitcase , by Karen Levine, has been adapted for film.  The film, "Inside Hana's Suitcase" is available in two different lengths, i.e. 92 minutes and 60 minutes.   The film is appropriate for children, ages upper elementary and up, as a stand alone, or as an accompaniment to the book.  Filmmaker Larry Weinstein has created a hybrid documentary/drama film which in his own words tells a "story that is very special and universal, but also uplifting in its promise of hope for Humanity." 

If you are not familiar with the story, the following is a quick synopsis:

The delivery of a battered suitcase to Fumiko Ishioka at the Tokyo Holocaust Museum begins the true-life mystery that became the subject of Karen Levine's best-selling book Hana's Suitcase . The suitcase came from the Auschwitz Museum and had Hana Brady's name painted on it.  Larry Weinstein's masterful film follows Fumiko's search to discover the details of Hana's life, which leads to the discovery of her brother George in Toronto.  As small children they had been sent to Thereisenstadt for being Jewish after the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939.  A superb musical score by Alexina Louie and Alex Pauk, coupled with dramatic reenactments stunningly shot by Horst Zeidler, catches us by the heart to invoke the tragedy of the times.  The voices of children from Japan, Canada, and the Czech Republic telling Hana's story are woven around the drama, along with George's memories and Fumiko's quest, to create a film of astonishing power and hope.  

A study guide, aligned to National Middle School Standards, co-authored by Douglas Wadley, one of the regional educators from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, is available at our website.

Please contact us with regard to Institutional DVD Sales and classroom showings .

Best,

Heidi Oshin, J.D., M.Ed.