
Promises
Seven children living in and around Jerusalem, Palestinian and Israeli, carry the weight of a conflict they did not start. Filmmaker B.Z. Goldberg, who grew up partly in Israel, uses his own connection to the place to get past the checkpoints and into living rooms on both sides, from a Jewish settlement to the Deheishe refugee camp. Twin brothers debate the occupation with more nuance than most adults manage, a settler's son explains why he believes the land is his by religious right, and a Palestinian boy describes losing family members without ever meeting the Israeli children living a few miles away. Goldberg eventually arranges some of these meetings himself, and the film sits in the awkwardness and curiosity that follow, letting kids ask each other the blunt questions grown-ups avoid. Shot over several years, it returns to some of the children later to see what, if anything, changed. It offers no resolution to the conflict, only a record of what it does to a childhood.