“If an honest dialogue is the initial step toward reconciliation, what we are given here could stand as a model. Its complexity is salutary, its professional film-making skill exemplary.” (Phillip Lopate)

The pomegranate is a symbol of rejuvenation and rebirth—and also a euphemism for a hand grenade. From Academy Award-nominated 85-year-old director Hava Kohav Beller (The Restless Conscience), this is a suspenseful, multi-layered documentary centered on a group of young people who were born into an insidious, ongoing war. We meet young Palestinians and Israelis who go to a retreat in Germany called Vacation from War, where they come together under one roof and discuss what’s happening back home. In highly charged encounters, they confront the entrenched myths and grievances that each side has about the other. Beller interweaves these encounters with stories of other embattled lives in the Occupied Territories and Israel, painting a portrait of people caught in the duality of the pomegranate: Will they embrace rebirth and each other’s humanity, or will they pull the pin on the grenade?

Tickets: $10 (members), $15 (nonmembers)