Arna’s Children

Legendary activist Arna Mer Khamis married a Palestinian and spent her life fighting for justice, human rights for the Palestinian people, and an end to the occupation of her homeland, Israel. She founded an alternative education system and opened a theater group in a refugee camp, where she and her son Juliano taught Palestinian children to express themselves through the arts. Arna's death in 1995 put an end to the theater group. Five years later, Juliano returns to the camp to find out what happened to "The Children of Arna". Mer Khamis' film juxtaposes the boys with the fighters and martyrs they became, revealing the horror of young lives trapped by the circumstances of the Israeli occupation.

Discussion with Dima Mohammed and Camila Lobo.

Duration: 85’
Production year: 2004
Country: ISR, NL
Language: AR, EN, HE Subtitles: EN

Tribeca Film Festival – Best Documentary Feature
Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival – Official Selection
International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam IDFA – Official Selection
Viennale – Official Selection

03:34

Juliano Mer Khamis

Israeli-Palestinian director and activist Juliano Mer Khamis was born in Nazareth to a Palestinian father and Israeli mother, both of whom were advocates for Palestinian rights. He often claimed to be "100% Palestinian and 100% Jewish," but in Israel he was rarely allowed to forget his Arab origins. He began his career in the early 1980s, and his work includes Arna's Children (2006), a documentary about his mother, who founded a theater for Palestinian children in the Jenin refugee camp in the 1980s. In 2006, he co-founded the Al Hurriya Theater (Freedom Theater), as head of which he was assassinated by a group of extremists in 2011. Shortly after his assassination, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the PNA (Palestinian National Authority), declared Julian a shahid - a martyr.

Original title: Arna’s Children

Juliano Mer Khamis

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