ARNA'S CHILDREN

Yussef committed a suicide attack in 2001. Ashraf was killed by the Israeli army in 2002. Alla led a group of resistance fighters to his death in 2003. The director, who documented them as promising child actors in a theatre group he founded with his mother Arna, returns to Jenin Refugee Camp in April 2002, to see what happened to the children he knew and loved….

Juliano Mer Khamis is the son of Arna Mer, a Jewish woman, and Saliba Khamis, a Palestinian man. Today, Juliano is one of Israel/Palestine’s leading actors. During the first Intifada, his mother Arna established an alternative educational program in Jenin Refugee Camp to compensate for the virtual collapse of the formal one due to the Israeli occupation. Among its activities, was the ‘Stone Theatre’ – a performance workshop that Juliano directed. Eight years after Arna’s death, and  five years after the theatre project ended, Juliano returns to the Camp to discover the tragic story of “Arna’s children.”