Beyond the Walls (Israel-Palestine, 1984)

Beyond the Walls (Israel-Palestine, 1984) In Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles. Ripped VHS -> DVD -> AVI. (NTSC, 640 x 480, AC3 48 KHz.*) This fictional film, made in Israel (occupied Palestine), portrays the dynamic of cooperation and conflict between (mostly political) Palestinian prisoners and (mostly "criminal") Israeli Jewish prisoners in an Israeli prison. Although it focuses more on the Jewish prisoners, and was clearly made for a Hebrew-speaking audience, it doesn't denigrate the Arab prisoners or their political motivations. It should be noted that the systematic torture of Palestinian prisoners reportedly takes place in detention camps and not in regular prisons, and that this film is only portraying the conditions in the latter. Moreover, prison conditions in most of the Western world have gotten much worse since 1984, and the same may be true for Israel. It would be interesting to read the comments of Palestinians in particular who may have personal or other knowledge of the realities of Israeli prisons and detention camps. * I compressed the video using XviD but, for unknown reasons, it shows up as "Generic MPEG-4".