House of Hope Documentary Wins Hot Docs Top Prize
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- House of Hope is a documentary by Marjolein Busstra that spent three years following Manar Wahhab and Milad Vosgueritchian at their Waldorf-inspired school in al-Eizariya in the occupied West Bank, which teaches non-violent resistance to children living under occupation.
- Think-Film produced the documentary, the same company behind "The Voice of Hind Rajab," which tells the story of a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces in 2024 when 335 bullets were fired into the family car.
- House of Hope won best international feature documentary at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in May 2026, was screened at UNESCO in Paris, and is scheduled for the Jerusalem Arab Film Festival.
- Director Marjolein Busstra filmed Wahhab during vulnerable moments, including a breakdown in a classroom, with Wahhab's consent, saying she wanted audiences to go "beyond the framing of us vs them."
- After October 7, 2023, the school community "were like different people, like they lost all hope," according to Busstra, as the film documents intensified Israeli military actions in the West Bank, including the killing of children.
- Manar Wahhab said she wants the film to counter Western stereotypes of Palestinians as "terrorists" or "undeveloped," emphasizing that "nonviolence requires courage, awareness, patience and inner work."
Why it matters: The Hot Docs win and UNESCO/Jerusalem screenings amplify Wahhab's portrait of Palestinian life beyond 'terrorist' stereotypes, while the Think-Film production connection to 'Voice of Hind Rajab' ties the documentary to a broader artistic project documenting Palestinian civilian life under Israeli occupation.
