When the Boys Return

Storyline

In a room at their local YMCA in Hebron, the West Bank, a group of teenage boys come together each week to discuss their shared traumatic experiences. They are just a few of the 7,500 Palestinian minors aged 12-18 who, over the past decade, have been arrested on a daily basis and placed in Israeli jails, where their rights as children are completely ignored. Most have committed crimes no worse than throwing stones, but each is subjected to an average of two years in jail and rarely escapes without suffering the devastating effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. Following these young boys as they undergo three months of group therapy, all the while struggling to integrate back into the routines they once knew, director Tone Anderson takes us deep into the lives of some of the conflict's biggest victims.