In this condensed and compact cinematic challenge, I deal directly with the bases of the militant state of mind. The collective trauma upon which contemporary societies, such as the Israeli one, are founded and formed, is creating a binary perspective containing only victims and perpetrators, especially among the younger generation.
The Heritage Tour - an integral part of the Israeli education system - is an extreme exploration ground for this theme. The tour, like the military draft it precedes, is an initiation ceremony that teenagers are demanded to pass in order to be accepted openly to society as adults. It acts as an essential missing link for understanding the Middle Eastern conflict. It is rather impossible to conduct nowadays any productive discussion on the condition of occupation in Palestine without relating to Auschwitz. For deeply inflicted societies, there is no clear separation between past, future and present. The former constantly exists within the latter.
Therefore those teenagers who are schooled constantly to fear the future because of catastrophic collective history are embodying that missing link which perpetrates the situation of occupation in the solidified state of mind.
The events this film is based upon are rooted deep in my autobiography. It all happened in my high school, in my class, with the people I studied with. Although I was not participating in that tour, I remember what happened when they returned. I remember the justifications and excuses - and after the original shock, the understanding and acceptance by teachers, parents and students alike. I dropped out from that high school soon afterwards. I decided to dedicate my time to finding ways to deal with such deep inherited cultural conflicts.
Living and working in Europe in the last couple of years, I learned that this film is the way to successfully recreate this essential missing link between the painful past and the impenetrable political present, while projecting a possibility of hope for the future.