Hot Docs 2009

The Israeli government defines them as "security prisoners," suicide bombers and terrorists, but the 10,000 Palestinians living behind the barbed wire and high walls of Israeli jails consider themselves freedom fighters and resisters in a land under military occupation. While the Israeli state tries to defeat Palestinian resistance by arresting its militants and leaders, HotHouse exposes the jails as prisoner-organized training grounds where cellblocks are divided into Hamas and Fatah communities, and jailed leaders inspire men and women to study, hone their political skills and organize resistance from inside. Structured around the build-up to the 2006 Palestinian elections and the large-scale arrests of Hamas political members, the film's director conducts extraordinarily frank and sometimes shocking conversations with jailed Hamas and Fatah leaders-including the Hamas leader of the West Bank who is elected to Parliament from his prison cell, and a woman proud of the number of children killed in a suicide bombing that she arranged. A powerful and controversial film, HotHouse was the winner of the Special Jury Prize: World Cinema Documentary at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles.