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Nearly 10,000 Palestinians are incarcerated in Israel today. Most Israelis regard
these "security prisoners" as murderers and criminals. To the
Palestinians, however, they are freedom fighters, heroes, and
martyrs in the making. Granted extraordinary behind-the-
scenes access to the highest-security institutions, award-
winning filmmaker Shimon Dotan explores the experiences,
motivations and mindsets of those Palestinians behind the most
horrific terrorist acts, and sheds light on the undeniable
connection between the inmates' lives within the prison, and
the degree to which they influence the political process outside.
In this award-winning, 90-minute documentary HOT HOUSE, Shimon
Dotan focuses his camera on everyday life in two Israeli
prisons. What emerges is a surprising glimpse of the
prisoners as informed thinkers who are immersed in the
details of the centuries-old conflict through newspapers
and television. Dotan interviews inmates who are
committed to negotiations as well as others who are
shockingly unrepentant about their involvement in planning
suicide bombings. The cold-blooded testimony of a female
Hamas leader, proudly serving 16 life sentences for
blowing up a pizzeria in Jerusalem, is perhaps the most
chilling.
Israel's prisons have evolved into virtual incubators for
Palestinian nationalism, strengthening inmates' ideology
and forging a political force that impacts far beyond their
walls. Eschewing the simplistic "white hat, black hat"
mentality dominating today's discussions of terrorism,
Dotan's film portrays the prisoners as well-educated men
and women with strong beliefs and a willingness to
sacrifice anything in what they consider to be a war against
their oppressors.
The documentary begins one year prior and leads up to the
January 25, 2006 elections held for the Palestinian
Legislative Council, the legislature of the Palestinian
National Authority. Notwithstanding the 2005 municipal
elections and the January 9, 2005 presidential election, this
was the first election to the PLC since 1996; subsequent
elections had been repeatedly postponed due to ongoing
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinian voters in the Gaza
Strip and the West Bank were eligible to participate in the
election, and many did so from within Israeli prisons,
resulting in a decisive victory for the Hamas party.
Currently making its way around the festival circuit, Hot
House (f.k.a. Bit'Honiim) screened at the 2006 Jerusalem
Film Festival, won a Special Jury Prize in World Cinema-
Documentary at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, and will
also screen at the Human Rights Watch 2007 International
Film Festival as well as the Chicago International Film
Festival (where it is in competition). Excerpts from
reviews: "[a] brilliantly constructed, disturbingly
provocative film [that] is both a humanizing force and an
alarming wake-up call" (Sundance), "At once chilling and
humanizing" (Film.com), "Dotan... lays out the evidence in
a tone of evenhanded alarm, showing an appropriate
degree of respect... for his disciplined, well-organized
subjects" (Variety).
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER: Shimon Dotan was born in
Romania, grew up in Israel, and is currently working in
Canada, Israel, and the United States. Dotan, a fellow of
the New York Institute of the Humanities at NYU, is an
award-winning filmmaker with 10 feature films to his
credit. His film The Smile of the Lamb received the Silver
Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and the award
for best director at the Israeli Academy Awards. Dotan has
taught filmmaking at NYU, Tel Aviv University, and
Concordia University in Montreal.
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