A unique document that must be watched. The most humane story on the conflict I have ever stumbled upon.

ARNA’S CHILDREN tells the story of a theatre group that was established by Arna Mer Khamis. Arna comes from a Zionist family and in the 1950s married a Palestinian Arab, Saliba Khamis. In the West Bank she opened an alternative education system for children whose regular life was disrupted by the Israeli occupation. The theatre group was started engaging children from Jenin, helping them to express their everyday frustrations, anger, bitterness and fear. Arna’s son Juliano, director of this film, was also one of the directors of Jenin’s theatre. With his camera, he filmed the children during rehearsal periods from 1989 to 1996.

Later on, he went back to see what happened to them. Yussef committed a suicide attack in Hadera in 2001, Ashraf was killed in the battle of Jenin, Ala lead a resistance group. Juliano looked back in time in Jenin, trying to understand the choices made by the children he loved and worked with. Shifting back and forth in time, the film reveals the tragedy and horror of lives trapped by the circumstances of the Israeli occupation.