Intriguing

Park City
Waiting for the shuttle bus after having just gotten out of a screening of Hot House, a doc from Israel about Palestinian incarceration. Most Israelis regard the nearly 10,000 Palestinian prisoners as murderers and criminals. To the Palestinians, however, they are heroes and freedom fighters, many of whom were and are extremely politically active. Granted unprecedented access to the prisons, director Shimon Dotan discovers that these cells have become a breeding ground for the next generation of Palestinian leaders and a hotbed for terrorist plots against the Israeli State. What we see in the film is a glimpse of everyday prison life, with people who are not only well cared-for, but who are also educated and intelligent thinkers who are fully immersed in the political reality outside the walls of the prison. Extremely informative and well built, the film puts a very human face on the conflict and violence between the two states. I only find fault in Shimon's doc through the simply fact that he assumes the viewer already has a basic understanding of Israeli and Palestinian politics and the issues and motivations that surround their turf war battle. Worth seeing regardless of whether or not you have any knowledge of the Middle East (in fact... if you know nothing about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, you need to see this film.