The Romeo & Juliet paradigm has been one-upped in Out in the Dark, directed by Michael Mayer. The film not only depicts a forbidden love affair between an Israel and a Palestinian but also between two gay men, whose sexual orientation is not accepted by either side in the political conflict. The Palestinian, Nimr Mashrawi (played by Nicholas Jacob), is a brilliant psychology study, attending a university in the West Bank, who has just been granted an unlimited pass to attend a class at a university in Israel. When he enters a gay bar in Tel Aviv, he not only befriends transsexual Gil (Alon Pdut) but also an Israeli, Roy Schaefer (Michael Aloni), who is the junior partner in his father’s law firm. Both are keeping their sexual orientation in the closet, but that changes later. Whereas Schaefer’s law firm deals with gangsters, Nimr’s brother is assembling a cache of arms that might be used in terrorist attacks. But Israelis are also terrorists in the film, blackmailing gay Palestianians to rat on their comrades under penalty of death if they want to continue to live in or visit Israel. As the film proceeds, the modernity of Israel is contrasted with the run-down condition of the West Bank, where Palestinians live an apartheid existence in which Israeli armed patrol officers have itchy fingers on their triggers. But the two men are deeply in love, and when the dragnet tries to close in on his Palestinian lover after his brother captures an Israeli officer, Roy discovers an underground railroad by sea for Nimr to go to France while he is arrested for facilitating the escape. What happens in the end is left for the filmviewer to imagine, but the Political Film Society has nominated Out in the Dark for best film on human rights of 2013. MH