Hannibal Rising

Beginning in 1941 at Lecter Castle in Lithuania, the eight-year-old Hannibal Lecter’s (Aaron Thomas) life is thrown into turmoil by World War Two. Lecter, his sister Mischa (Helena Lia Tachovska), and his parents flee from the Nazis to the family’s hunting lodge deep in the forests of Lithuania. As a final destructive act of the war, the Nazis destroy a Soviet tank that was near the Lecters’, the explosion kills everyone but Hannibal, and his sister Mischa. The two children live in isolation until seven Nazi collaborators discover them while searching for food. Then further horrors ensue. Hannibal blacks out and then wanders about as a mute, until he is picked up by a Soviet tank that takes him home to Lecter Castle, now an orphanage. Two years later his uncle, from France, comes to Lithuania to take in Hannibal. Hannibal begins his studies at this point and his remarkably successful. He also begins his murderous habits, mainly focused around hunting the Nazi collaborators from his youth in Lithuania. Hannibal is caught by the police, but freed because of support for his revenge and a lack of evidence. Hannibal then leaves Europe for America to pursue his medical education.