How can we care for children as a genocide unfolds around them? How can we help them process the traumas of apartheid, or make sense of the violence that surrounds them? How do educators find the strength and resilience to do this work?
These questions linger throughout House of Hope, a quietly devastating documentary about a Palestinian couple, Manar and Milad, who run a progressive school for young children in the West Bank.
The film, which made its international premiere at this year’s Hot Docs Festival on Thursday, offers no easy answers. Instead, Dutch director Marjolein Busstra provides a portrait of a family and community struggling to carry on in the wake of Oct. 7, as Israeli forces chip away at what remains of their liberty and dignity.
Busstra’s film takes place in Al Eizariya, a village just outside of Jerusalem, at the small House of Hope school for children between the ages of 4 and 11. The specialized school emphasizes a holistic, and trauma-informed approach to education.
The first third of the film is set in the summer of 2023, and offers a glimpse into the school’s unique approach, based on the Waldorf model of education. Each morning, the students recite a pledge inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., promising to be non-violent and peaceful. We watch as Manar and Milad challenge the students to express negative or difficult emotions. They learn about empathy and love, and are taught communication skills.
I’ll admit that I was a bit skeptical after learning that the film’s focus was a school centred on the philosophy of non-violence. I was concerned that Busstra’s framing might be susceptible to what Palestinian writer Mohammed el-Kurd describes as the “politics of appeal” in his 2025 book Perfect Victims.
According to el-Kurd, Palestinians are too often forced to perform “perfect victimhood” in order to have their suffering or humanity recognized by the Western gaze. Therefore, the Palestinian child who attends a school committed to non-violence becomes a more palatable victim of violence than, say, the child who throws stones at an Israeli tank. The effect, el-Kurd argues, “diverts critical scrutiny away from the colonizer and onto the colonized, obscuring the inherent injustice of colonialism, thus shielding the colonial project.”
Fortunately, House of Hope mostly avoids this framing. Shot in a strictly observational style, the film does not dwell on the origin of the school or the pedagogy that underpins it. Nor does it weigh in on broader political debates over non-violent and violent forms of resistance that arise in a colonial, or specifically Palestinian, context.
Rather, the House of Hope school is portrayed as a safe and nurturing place, where young children are shielded from the traumas and indignities of everyday life under occupation and apartheid — the checkpoints that limit travel, the intimidation by Israeli soldiers, the frequent outbreaks of violence.
It is difficult, frustrating work. “Is this a life, even?” Manar asks a fellow teacher during a rare moment of quiet. “There are no opportunities, no safety. Nothing is normal.”
The film shifts gears following Oct. 7, 2023, as Israeli forces clamp down even harder on movement in the West Bank. In a heartbreaking scene, Manar and Milad process the news, their faces filled with worry, as their young daughter practices her dance moves and their teenage son plays video games, both oblivious of what’s to come. Manar clings tightly to her daughter.
A palpable heaviness descends on House of Hope in the months that follow, as the death toll rises in Gaza, as missiles soar overhead, and as Israel’s nighttime raids in the West Bank become more frequent. “It feels like a new Nakba,” Manar tells her husband.
The exhaustion begins to set in as the teachers attempt to maintain their resolve, helping the young students process the relentless stress and trauma that impacts their families. Meanwhile, the young students begin acting out. They seem restless, and begin to act violently towards one another.
As Israel rains indiscriminate destruction on Gaza and the West Bank, the hope that was palpable at the start of the film begins to wane. Still, the teachers reaffirm their commitment to the school’s principles of non-violence and peace, however impossible or naive they may seem.
Stretched thin at the school, Manar and Milad also face immense stress and pressures at home. You can feel their fear and worry as they send their teenage son off to school each day, unsure whether he will make it home safely.
Eventually, Manar breaks down under the immense pressure. As she begins to cry, another teacher arrives to offer support. “We are Palestinian women, we need to be like titans,” she tells Manar, lifting her to her feet, and pulling her back to her students.
The remarkable resilience of these women, the film suggests, is not an act of heroism, but one of necessity.
House of Hope is a moving, if occasionally frustrating documentary. A more nuanced film might have spent more time examining the school’s pedagogical approach, or contextualizing the interplay between non-violence and armed resistance in the West Bank (though perhaps these subjects are better left to Palestinian filmmakers).
Instead, Busstra keeps her gaze narrowly focused on a single family and their community, reminding us of the immense struggle faced by ordinary people across Palestine.
Since October 2023, Israel has killed or injured more 50,000 children in Gaza, and killed at least 235 children in the West Bank. Tens of thousands of children in Palestine have been orphaned or separated from their families.
These numbers are almost impossible to fathom. House of Hope is an urgent reminder to not look away.
