Arna's Children

Juliano Mer Khamis' powerful documentary of his mother, Arna, an activist against the Israeli occupation who founded an alternative education system for Palestinian children in the refugee camp of Jenin. The school is an attempt to provide hope to the Palestinian children and to help them over come the traps of living in a refugee camp under continual restrictions, checkpoints, curfews, home demolitions, air raids, and armored military incursions. After his mother's death and the subsequent closing of the school, Juliano returns to Jenin years later after the Second Intifada and infamous "Battle of Jenin" to see what has happened to the former students. The chilling result is a personal detailing of the cycle of violence and brutality of growing up in a Palestinian refugee camp.