In Oct 2013, 16 Yr old Anrai Carroll from Ireland travelled to Palestine to make a film on child arrests. Armed with two tiny video camera and with little prior video experience, he travelled with his mum to the West Bank where he met and interviewed two boys his own age to hear what its like to be arrested in the middle of the night by the Israeli Army and to live in fear of that knock on the door at 2am in the morning.
The film charts not just the physical journey of 4,000km from Ireland to Palestine, but Anrai’s emotional journey from boy to young man.

Premièring in Waterford at the Granville Hotel, the Quays Waterford, 8pm, Feb 18th, 2014.

Its strange to be finally finished the film, we honestly had no idea what we were getting into when we started, it was originally meant to be a short youtube video but grew into a 45min documentary charting Anrai’s journey, both the real journey and the psychological journey from boy to young man. It started out as just the two of us, a kid and a single parent, feck all money, and two tiny borrowed cameras……..but the “film crew” grew as we progressed……bits of the sound were done in Qatar, The Real News, via Addameer donated footage, Tommy Donnellan gave us full access to his footage, Jewish Voice for Peace gave us an animation piece,photographs from the child arrest came via Maria Schaffluetzel in Switzerland and we even got footage (of the road from Ramallah to Nablus which we needed) from a Syrian woman……the music came from Palestinian/South African Band the Mavrix. It was a global affair!!!

We needed a lot of extra gear, tripods, sd cards, notebook and external hard drive, not to mention our expenses while we were there (I paid for the flights and Accom in Tel Aviv) but thanks to the huge support around the world we raised the money and now have money for the launch and money to buy a projector screen and speakers so we can go on the road with the movie.
Most of all…… we are deeply indebted to Hassan Shb and his family, who set up the interviews….such amazing people!
The list of people who helped and supported us is so long…..too long to list here, but will be in the credits…Shukran/Thank you/Go raibh Mile Maith agat. We have all played a small part to STOP CHILD ARRESTS IN PALESTINE!