Zaytoun revolves around the fate of someone captured in the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The period portrayed, much earlier than Out in the Dark, is a decade after the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Israel expelled so many Palestinians from the West Bank that the Palestine Liberation Organization reestablished a headquarters and training camps in Lebanon, with a UN monitoring force situated on the border between Israel and Lebanon. One day, 15-year-old Fahed (remarkably played by Abdallah El Akal) is in training at a Palestinian camp inside Lebanon when an Israeli jet flies overhead. Picking up his rifle, he pretends to shoot down the plane, but at that very moment the plane is hit and falls to earth. The pilot, Yoni (Steven Dorff), parachutes but is captured by Palestinians, so Fahed decides to visit the man whom he presumably shot down to revel over his incarceration. However, Fahed badly wants to visit his hometown, abandoned during an Israeli attack when he was 5, and Yoni sees an opportunity to make a deal: If Fahed will free him from captivity while still handcuffed, Yoni will take Fahed, carrying a small zaytoun (olive tree), to his abandoned hometown. Much of the film then proceeds as a road trip (albeit entirely filmed in Israel) through many hazards, such as checkpoints and minefields, and the two gradually become close friends, though Yoni is mystified by Fahed’s insistence on taking along the olive tree until they reach his former home. The title, chosen by director Eran Riklis clearly states an anti-war theme. Accordingly, the Political Film Society has nominated Zaytoun as best film on peace of 2013. MH