Arna’s Children

Arna Mer came from a Zionist family and in the 1950s married a Palestinian Arab whom she met in the Communist party. In the West Bank, she opened an alternative education system to replace the formal one, practically paralyzed by the Israeli occupation. Together with her son Juliano, who was a prominent actor, they started a theater group engaging children from the Jenin refugee camp, helping them to express their everyday frustrations, anger, bitterness and fear.

Juliano taught the children theater from 1989 to 1996, and in this film, he returns to the ruins of the refugee camp to see what happened to them. Yussef committed a suicide attack in Hadera in 2001, Ashraf was killed in the battle of Jenin, Alla leads a resistance group. Juliano tries to understand the choices made by the children he loved and worked with.

In 2011, Juliano Mer-Khamis was killed in front of the theater he established in Jenin. Shifting back and forth in time, Arna’s Children tells the story of the theater kids and the role of art as a weapon against occupation.