Mafak (Screwdriver)

Bassam Jarbawi | Palestine | 2018 | drama | 108 min. | Arabic, Hebrew spoken | English subtitles

When he is eighteen years old, Ziad witnesses the murder of his childhood friend Ramzi by an Israeli sniper. His rash retaliatory action earns him a severe prison sentence. When he gets out fifteen years later, he is welcomed back as a hero. But in the meantime the world has changed and Ziad’s childhood is over. He can’t share his traumatic experiences, causing him insomnia, headaches and urinary problems, with anyone. A Palestinian-American documentary filmmaker attempts to end Ziad’s isolation.

Screwdriver addresses a widespread, but neglected phenomenon in Palestinian society: the detention and torture of large groups of young men in Israeli prisons, and the mental wounds it leaves behind.