On Dec. 8, we woke up to the news of more Israeli atrocities in Gaza, and one particular one, the targeted assassination of Dr. Refaat Alareer, whose tweets I had been seeing since the beginning of Israel's assault on Gaza. Dr. Refaat had 99,000 followers, and when I started to read his backlog, I saw that he had been threatened and targeted by members of the Israeli army and its hasbara officials outside the country several times.

When the assassination happened, there was naturally a general disbelief that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) could carry out such an attack quite so openly. After spending the day mourning his death, in the evening I went to see the opening film of the 11th Bosphorus Film Festival, Farah Nabulsi’s "The Teacher." When the film opened with an English teacher, played by Saleh Bakri, listening to a student’s English homework with all the goodwill and patience of a real-life teacher, the film already felt like a tribute to Dr. Refaat himself.

The opening scene of "The Teacher" already places us in a world where Palestinians, a people constantly harassed, attacked and left to their own devices by the "civilized" world continue to take an interest in that very world, its languages and cultures. We get to know Adam and his brother, the latter having just returned from his prolonged "detention" in an Israeli prison. We understand that the teacher, Basem, is connected to these boys in a special way, and learn later that they were best friends with his own son who was taken away to "detention" for eight years, never to return.

Right after we leave the classroom, the Palestinian story gathers pace, and we see the teenagers’ house being demolished by Israeli soldiers, reminding us that Israel has been destroying Palestinian homes for a very long time, and it’s just that some of its terror methods are slower than others. After the home is destroyed the family looks for their belongings, and it’s precisely like the pictures we have been seeing from Gaza – like a small girl discovering that their rabbit is still alive.

The scene that really got to me, maybe because I come from an olive cultivating family myself, is when Adam’s brother sees, through his prized binoculars, that the settlers he has been monitoring have entered the olive orchard, and the way he runs like his life were at stake, will never leave me. Adam and the teacher also join him and it’s a breathtaking sequence, of two Palestinian boys running, as if for their lives, to save the olives. The settlers, with their automatic rifles – anyone who has been to Israel knows this is how they walk around – have indeed set fire to a couple of trees. They are not to be reasoned with, but for the trees, the boys are ready to risk death.

While the teacher preaches to the boys to keep their heads down and take no necessary risks that would bring further sorrow to their mother, he himself is in the process of risking everything, by accepting to shelter the kidnapped Israeli soldier Palestinian resistance fighters are hoping to exchange with Palestinian prisoners. Having lost his son to the Israeli "justice" system, the teacher naturally has a stake in this, and so agrees. Events lead to Adam finding out about the prisoner and he manages to be of help to Basem at a crucial moment, a favor Basem returns in full at the end of the film. I particularly applaud Nabulsi’s choice of not showing the Israeli prisoner’s face. In a world where Palestinian victims don’t get to have a face and are systematically reduced to numbers by the "free" world, this seems to be the only honorable response.

In encompassing almost all the elements of the Palestinian struggle and Israeli aggression in her film, Nabulsi has chosen to make the soldier an American Israeli who has decided to play soldier in the "promised land." This of course lets Nabulsi remind the audience that Israel’s war on Palestine is an international effort and that while American and European citizens who fight in other countries’ wars may be censored or even stripped of their citizenship in their own country, Israeli dual citizens from all over the world get feted for their effort both in Israeli and certain international publications. The soldier’s parents appear somewhat caricaturish, but this, too, feels earned, considering all the caricaturish portrayals of Palestinians and Muslims in European and American films.

The do-gooder British character in "The Teacher" is played by Imogen Poots. This is a very welcome surprise – a decision no young actress can take lightly these days, as appearing in a film that is about Palestine and does not actively cheer on the destruction of homes and killing of the innocent could mean getting shut out of the industry altogether. Poots plays Lisa, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) worker who is supposed to encourage school boys to get reintegrated into the classroom after having spent time in Israeli "detention." She falls, understandably, in love with Saleh Bakri’s character, and the film has precious few moments where the two fall under each other’s spell, and Nabulsi gives us a glimpse into the spaces where lovers in Palestine can spend time together.

If the film feels like a documentary, it does because in certain ways it is. During the Q and A after the film, Nabulsi said that settlers did come and set the olive trees on fire at the time of shooting, and that shooting the film in the West Bank was a real challenge, including the actors being subjected to the sort of waits and searches at checkpoints that their characters face.

Documenting the everyday destruction that Palestinians face, the film also pays special tribute to the beautiful landscape, accompanied by Alex Baranowski's wistful music. Although there are several desperate moments that will bring the audience to tears, it would not be a spoiler to say that in the closing sequence, Nabulsi has chosen to show us that the metaphorical flag of resistance has been passed on to the next generation and that Palestinians will hold on to their homeland.