In 1933, Anna’s German-Jewish family gets a phone call and everything changes. Anna’s father, a prominent critic of the National Socialists, is warned that he is on Hitler’s hit list, and the family hurriedly flees Berlin. Overnight, Anna must suddenly learn how to survive in an epic historical drama by Oscar-winner Caroline Link.
Allowed to take just one suitcase, 9-year-old Anna must decide which of her toys will make the trip. She leaves behind her beloved pink stuffed rabbit, which is later confiscated by the Nazis along with all the family’s possessions. Traveling from the Swiss Alps to Paris to London, Anna experiences the good in humanity while also facing discrimination, language barriers, instability and pre-war tensions. Learning to live with next to nothing, Anna cannot help but think of the beloved toy she left behind until she discovers what she’s had with her all along. Link’s moving adaptation of the best-selling novel by Judith Kerr chronicles the experiences of a family fleeing persecution through a child’s eyes. (Deb Girdwood and Alissa Simon)
Recommended for ages 10+
Director Biography
Born in 1964 in Bad Nauheim, West Germany, Caroline Link studied at the Munich Academy of Film and Television. Among her many features are Beyond Silence (1996), nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Nowhere in Africa (2001), which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
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