From a young age growing up in Ireland, 16-year-old Anrai Carroll learned about Palestinian history and culture through his mother, Brenda. Upon learning the grim realities of Palestinian child arrests – which affect hundreds of underage children in Palestine every year – Anrai became determined to do something about it. Encouraged by his mother, family, friends, and classmates (who helped him raise €300 worth of lunch money to chop off his long locks), Anrai decided to travel to Palestine and make a film about Israeli detentions of minors to raise awareness among people back home. “The one thing that has always been close to heart with Palestine, for me, has been child arrests,” he says. “Knowing that children my age could get arrested – that I only hadn’t been arrested because I was born in Ireland – is something I wanted to concentrate on in the film.” With cameras in hand, Anrai and his mother travelled to the West Bank in October, 2013 to shoot. We got the chance to talk with both Anrai and Brenda about the making of Small Hands in Handcuffs, and especially about what Anrai learned along the way. 
BPFF: Anrai, what did your mom tell you about Palestine that made you care so much about it growing up? Anrai: The reality that kids my age get arrested – that always felt extremely wrong to me. The idea that their freedom could suddenly be taken away from them… I couldn’t help but think, “What if that happened to me?” BPFF: In the film, you interview a lot of boys your age in the West Bank who had been detained by the Israeli army. What was that like? Anrai: It was hard to listen to. Hearing what they’ve been through… It was so strange and surreal talking to someone who had just been through things like that. And they talked about it so openly sometimes. It was hard to listen to and keep your ears open. BPFF: What was the hardest part about it? Anrai: It was a bit rough at times. It was strange, though. Near the end of the two weeks, everything became very normal, almost. I was sitting outside and my mom was drinking tea, and we heard a small explosion in the distance. And we weren’t scared or anything. We just assumed that it was small grenade. The thought occurred to me that we just began to accept the situation as normality, and that the people over there would hear explosions or gunshots and would just accept them as daily events. BPFF: Brenda, what was it like for you, as his mom, to watch Anrai interview these boys? Brenda: I suppose the most powerful thing about it was, just how scary things were for him. And yet, he kept going and he was determined to make it. He stuck at it. The emotional part of it was very hard for him. That affected him way more than the soldiers or checkpoints, or hearing sound bombs in the night. Hearing stories of those boys – and we heard a lot worse that we were unable to show in the final film – really shocked him. That was beyond belief – just the most horrific things. That was the hardest thing for him. And, for me, that was the hardest part: to watch my son’s innocence, in a way, disappear. But he just kept going, and I was immensely proud. BPFF: Anrai, has your Irish heritage influenced your interest in Palestine at all? Anrai: Personally, my heritage doesn’t come into it too much, but my mom grew up in Belfast, which was very similar. She’s always told me about that. There’s been a great deal of solidarity between the Irish and Palestine. [Palestinians] understand that we have an idea of what they are going through, because Irish people have gone through it as well. BPFF: Brenda, what about you? Is the connection between Ireland and Palestine something that you think about? Brenda: Oh yes – it’s huge! In Palestine, they always say that everybody around the world who comes, they understand what occupation is like in their heads. But the Irish and the Palestinians, we understand what occupation is like in our hearts. It does something to you inside. But you also learn to live with it and be happy. I think that’s another thing Palestinians have as well with the Irish – a great resilience. That, yes, you can take our country, but you’re not going to take away our hearts. You’re not going to take away our spirit. We’ll still have fun, we’ll still have our families, we’ll still be warm and friendly. Palestine and Ireland are probably the most welcoming countries you can go to. There’s such a bond between the two. BPFF: Anrai why do you think films resonate like yours with audiences? What makes film a powerful medium? Anrai: Well, first of all, film is a popular medium. While reading the news, I feel like a lot of people don’t get as interested in certain topics. But with film, it pulls the thought out of them. People get dragged into films while they watch, and they become entranced. With my film, the idea was to get a lot more young people involved in Palestine, from my generation. I hope that the film will inspire others my age to do something similar. BPFF: Did the process of filming change you in anyway? Anrai: The process pushed me into the deep end with growing up. It helped me grow up a lot faster. I think I can deal with problems in life a lot easier now – if something valuable that I owned, like a phone, breaks, I just think, “Well, at least I have my freedom.”
— Alia Gilbert for BPFF
Small Hands in Handcuffs screens Monday, October 20, 2014 at the Cambridge Public Library at 6 pm as part of a thematic slot called Shebab (Youth) in Palestine and Beyond. The show is free and open to the public and is co-presented by The Irish Film Festival – Boston. View the full BPFF festival schedule here.