If you are someone who is looking for some kind of inspiration in your life or just want to learn about different parts of the world. Then you must go to a film festival, film festivals bring movies from all parts of the world and you can watch hundreds of films there. In a recent film festival I stumbled upon this movie Land of The Little People, I just loved it. The best part was the director of the film Yaniv Berman was also there. He answered all my questions and it was a great experience.

Land of The Little People is an Hebrew language film made in 2016 by Yaniv Berman. The movie is set in a small war town in Israel. In Israel there is a rule that every one should serve in the army for two years after their college, Berman told that his daughter who was 5 years old was scared to grow up because of this and she used to fight with her dad about this rule. This inspired Yaniv to write this story. This was told to me by Yaniv himself when we were talking.

The film was about 80 minutes or so, it was shorter than most films there I was a bit skeptical at first, but it was a killer. I caught me and stabbed me again, again and again the experience of watching this film in a cinema hall is amazing. Its a war thriller film but the only unique thing is that the lead charterers are all kids. It a Spaghetti-Western film with kids. This film is not for fainthearted, a lot of blood violence here. If you are a blood thirsty coldblooded vampire like me then this film is a treat for you.

What director wanted to show was the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the two governments are fighting with each other from last 50 years its the longest conflict ever. Just for a piece of land both of these countries are fighting, it looks like kids fighting with each other over a bar of chocolate. Metaphorically the director showed the kids fighting with each other as representation of countries or government fighting with each other. Even though the people of Israel and Palestine are friends the government is separating them both. I learned a lot about Israel after watching this film. Film like this can tell us the situations of common man living in countries like these, better than news or the internet.

There will be four kids Omer, Tali, Louie and Aliza they all will be belonging to a military family. All of the kid's fathers will be serving in the army. The kids will be inspired from their fathers and will try to replicate the scenarios they see in television or the things the hear from grown ups. They will make their own weapons and start to play with them, everything will be fine until two young Palestinian army deserters come and starts hiding in the same place the kids used to play. This will lead to a fight between kids and the deserter for that place which is just a broken old pump house. 

What struck me the most is the power these kids were able to express. I always thought to show power you need to look powerful with big body and muscles, but by the end of the film I was shit scared of these four innocent looking kids. I'm trying to deconstruct why I was so scared. I still didn't find the answer. Sometimes, its better to keep it that way. Its just the magic of good cinema.

I remembered "Rugrats", it was an old Nickelodeon cartoon series I used to watch when I was 10 years old or something. Even in "Rugrats" the babies have their own world and they are having adventures in it. Similarly, the kids will also be playing in their own world, but the adventure goes from imagination to reality. 

The kids will also have their own problem like home works and normal kids, but they will also be trying to chase away the Palestinian army deserters who will be hiding. The film shows us how the media and the government is changing the minds of these kids who are exposed to news and information about the war. The important lesson is that the kids forgot that the deserters were also humans and started attacking them. All because of the bad things we all are exposed to by the government. Even in India we are exposed to bad things about Pakistan, but in reality India and Pakistan are like siblings. The media has all of us brainwashed. Here's the trailer.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="

" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

In the end, I would suggest all of you to watch this film and find your own meanings inside the film. The most beautiful thing about cinema is that every individual finds his own unique meaning in it.

Thank you for reading, If you have have any questions about this film or films in general ask me in the comment box. Cheers!

                                       Follow me @nandan