Episode 1 Alternativity

This is Bethlehem.

MUSIC: Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney

World capital of the international Jesus Christ birthday business.

This year, Bethlehem became home to a unique hotel.

-REPORTER:

-..where, just metres from its doors,

is the concrete wall Israel has built...

..and this whole room is a Banksy...

It's an intervention into one of the poorest parts

of a would-be Palestinian state.

Billed as having the worst view in the world,

Banksy's Walled Off Hotel

sits under the gaze of an Israeli watchtower

in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The place where Christmas was invented

now feels like a city under siege,

and in serious need of some festive cheer.

This is the story of what happened

when Banksy asked a world-famous movie director

to come all the way to the little town of Bethlehem...

..to put on a nativity play like no other

in what was once the most Christmassy place on earth.

My name is Wisam Salsaa,

and I'm the manager of the Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem.

Working with Banksy is not something easy to do, it's not a normal job.

I have to do everything.

I clean bathrooms.

I paint, I make stencils.

It was annoying, in the beginning, to work with him,

because I did not understand his head.

I'm the only one who can communicate to Banksy,

so that makes things so complicated.

OK, there's a cameraman in front of me, filming me,

so I'm going to take off the...

I'm going to take off the mic, OK, and talk to you,

unless you want me, you want him to record what I'm saying?

Never easy to work for Banksy.

Things are very complicated.

I need the story, I need the story, I need the story.

I need the story.

Everything is unusual.

He would, like, give someone a job,

he would just think how to make the most difficult thing to achieve.

Banksy's new plan is crazy, I think.

Just crazy like the previous ones -

and he invited some Oscar-winning film director,

his name is Danny Boyle,

to come and do something at the hotel's car park.

Cool.

Yeah, it's very sweet.

Yeah, you can see where he's going!

Never met Banksy or had any correspondence with him,

or know the first thing about him, really, apart from his work.

I mean, I like his work very much.

I can't imagine there's many people

who don't know something about Banksy.

He's voted Britain's favourite artist,

above Constable, above Turner, all that lot.

I got a message purporting to be from Banksy,

would I consider being roped in to...

..helping him make a nativity play

in the car park of his hotel in Bethlehem?

"Dear Danny,

"I recently opened a guesthouse in Bethlehem

"but turns out it's less Christmassy than you might imagine.

"So I've decided we need to put on a nativity play.

"There's stiff competition from the church down the road,

"the place where Jesus was actually born,

"and our show needs to appeal to everybody in the region.

"An Alternativity. Can you help?

"After all, you managed to make Britain look cool at the Olympics,

"so bringing peace to the Middle East

"through an amateur dramatics performance shouldn't be a problem.

"Please consider. Yours, Banksy.

"PS, finding a donkey won't be difficult

"but I wonder if we can make it snow?"

So I replied and said, yes, of course,

and tomorrow morning I leave for Bethlehem.

I've never been to Israel, Palestine.

Never been anywhere near there, really.

I think Majorca's the most closest I've ever got!

There are no international airports in the West Bank.

Tourists fly into Tel Aviv in Israel.

From there, Bethlehem is only an hour by car...

..but the journey means crossing through

a 400-mile long heavily fortified separation barrier

into the occupied Palestinian territories.

Inside this enclosed region, movement is restricted,

and most Palestinians are not allowed to leave without permits.

It's a small step for Danny,

but a huge leap into a very different reality.

For my mother, Bethlehem meant something, completely.

She was very strict Irish Catholic,

and she would be very pleased that I'd finally made it to Bethlehem,

making a nativity play.

She would love that!

And there's the wall. Wow.

Yeah, look at that.

Is this it, is this the hotel?

-Yeah.

-Oh, cool!

-Hey!

-Hi, how are you?

Hey, I'm Danny. Thank you.

-Welcome.

-Great, thank you.

So, this goes like this...

..and then...

-You push.

-That's the room?!

This is...!

-This is the way...

-You're kidding!

-..to your room.

Yep.

Oh, wow.

Oh, it's lovely.

Wow, look at the wall!

-Let me just pull this up.

-Yes, please.

OK.

The wall's extraordinary, isn't it?

You'd no idea how...

..um...like, kind of...

It's just like nails driven into the ground. It's like...

You just imagine something different, really.

It's so crude and brutal.

Well, I'm looking at the car park where we're going to do it!

You could say it looks promising, yes.

In fact, I wouldn't mind having a walk round that right now, actually.

-So this is the car park?

-Yeah.

Great.

So what we're looking at is we set up a stage

-and somehow stage the nativity in here.

-Mm.

-Yep.

-And...

And people would come and stand - we won't have seating...

-Yeah.

-Will we have seating?

-I don't think so.

-Probably not. Just standing.

Standing room only.

-Yeah.

-That's OK, that's all right.

-It would be too cold to sit.

-It'd be like...

This is an extraordinary puzzle, really, I suppose.

But its purpose and its outcome is unclear.

In a way, the most obvious thing in the world

is what he wants us to do,

which is to stage a nativity play in Bethlehem.

What school teacher wouldn't think that was a good idea?

Being the artist that he is,

it isn't going to be just like a school play,

but there will be a function of the evening

that is beyond the automatic...

..goodwill of a school play.

Banksy told me that Danny has done events before,

but living in the occupied territories,

nothing is straightforward,

so he's going to need my help.

I need to appoint an assistant director,

someone who's going to rehearse while I'm away.

Do you know anybody who has that motivation to put plays on?

You know what? I know a young girl...

..she's very much involved, she teaches drama,

-I think she has the time...

-Yeah.

..I think she's creative and she has the time, you know,

she has, you know, the passion.

If you want, I can call her.

That would be wonderful.

She will be here in two minutes.

Oh, wonderful.

Hello. Are you Riham?

-Riham.

-Riham, I'm Danny.

-Yes.

-Hey, nice to meet you.

-He got my name right!

What we're doing is,

we're looking to stage a little nativity play

in the car park of the Walled Off Hotel.

We're trying to evolve a way of involving the community in it.

Where I come from,

where, if kids do nativity plays,

and it's cute beyond belief, and it has a beautiful charm,

and it would be interspersed, maybe, with some local performers,

like a rapper or a poet or a singer or a dancer,

so, what I was looking for...

..is for someone to be my co-director.

OK.

Do you like Banksy's work?

-Do you know his work?

-Yes, of course.

And?

Do you want me to be honest?

-Yes.

-Yes?

I am, I really like his work,

but I was very sceptical once the hotel opened.

Suddenly it is becoming like a very touristic exposure.

I'm against even like going and painting on the wall in general.

Is it something that would really change,

-or like just painting on it is very...

-Yeah.

..is something that's, for you, as a satisfactory moment

that you go and, like... you do it, and then that's it.

-Then...

-Interesting.

-Yeah, the wall thing.

And there's a lot of people who think it.

I was surprised from Riham's reaction after meeting with Danny.

I thought she would be more excited -

but this wall is not a place to have fun with or to use in a play.

This wall dominates everything in our lives, even going to work.

-Hi, Danny.

-Hey, Fadi. Good morning.

-Good morning. How are you?

Fadi, a local guide, is taking Danny

to experience Bethlehem's version of the rush-hour,

at 5am, when thousands of labourers queue for hours

to get to work on the other side, in Israel.

The separation barrier

and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land

have sliced through communities, separating neighbours.

Thousands have been imprisoned for refusing to leave their land,

and although the exact boundaries are hotly disputed,

many have been evicted and are now on blacklists,

banning them from entering Israel,

meaning they are unable to travel for work.

One of these is Amin.

Imprisoned as a teenager,

he now makes his living selling refreshments to the workers.

My day is my night and my night is my day.

They came to my land, and...

They take me to the prison, and I stayed for one year

because I am a terrorist because I fight them, you know?

And I lost my land, lost my life, lost my study.

I hope next year when you come here, no wall.

So this will have gone?

-Inshallah.

-Ugh! Inshallah.

You can see the guys going to work.

You know, it's almost like their heads were down

so that they didn't see the indignity

they were having to go through to pass through this thing.

I don't know how you get inside the consciousness of people

who actually live near it, or for whom it is a part of their life.

When it's been a part of your life for over a decade,

do you think about it in any way?

Do you think about it once a day?

Never a day? I don't know.

I went to the Berlin Wall before it came down in the early '80s...

..but this is so tall compared to that. It's like...

It's like double the height of the Berlin Wall.

Obviously, reading history and the background,

obviously the wall was a response to suicide bombings

and shocking acts of terror, really,

where innocent people were blown up and a nation clearly reacts

in an incredibly aggressive and dominant way

to a force that they feel threatens them.

So, I can understand - although I, personally, don't...

It's not a solution that I think works, ultimately,

nor I think is it a solution that is fair for any nation

to impose upon itself or a community within itself.

I find that very, very, very difficult.

HE HUMS TO HIMSELF

Apparently, for a census, for taxation reasons,

you had to go and register where you were from,

and so Joseph had to return to Bethlehem,

and so they undertook... Which is quite a considerable journey.

So, I think a sense of journeying is very important -

and, obviously, it was very interesting seeing all the workers

who travel to the other side of the wall to work,

and then had to walk back through the wall again.

So, the sense of foot travel, journeying,

would be a very powerful way to start it, I think.

My instinct is to replicate an image we all have

that is embedded in so many of us,

I think, which is the school nativity play,

and let the circumstances of where it is set,

out here in this car park, by the wall,

and by putting those two worlds together, that, to me, is enough.

I think, if I try to decorate the nativity play,

if I try to put a twist on that,

that in some way reflects on the circumstances here,

I think it would be very patronising.

Yeah, there's a message from Banksy.

"Here are a couple of random thoughts."

HE CHUCKLES

"Peace on Earth and goodwill to all, asterix,

"terms and conditions apply!

"Opening, Mary gets a text from a number she doesn't recognise

"telling her she's pregnant."

So, he's thinking more modern day.

I'm not sure about that. I worry about modernising it.

Um, maybe it can be traditional and she does have a phone,

maybe that's the...maybe that's fun,

that that actually she pulls a Samsung or an Apple

out of her traditional costume, you know?

So, I'm going to take you today to the Church of the Nativity.

How do you do, are you good?

-Yes. Good morning.

-Good morning, how are you?

But Danny's nativity won't be the only show in town.

This is Bethlehem - the birth of Jesus is big business.

A short drive from the hotel is Manger Square,

and the actual birthplace of Jesus Christ.

The Church of the Nativity might be cut off from the world

by walls and watchtowers,

but it still gets over a million tourists a year.

This is the exit of the... of the cave where Jesus was born.

Right.

Wow.

It's the manger where he was laid after being born over there.

Obviously, under intense tourist pressure, um,

like, of the intensity of the experience for everyone.

Banksy?

Yeah.

Sides of the world, isn't it?

And the ever-present Banksy T-shirt's here.

HE CHUCKLES

Incredible.

Everybody knows Banksy here, like, Banksy's a big thing in Bethlehem.

Sometimes I feel that some people deal with Banksy

as a prophet or a god or something.

I met Banksy in 2005.

At that time, I was working as a tour guide,

and there were not much tourists coming to Palestine.

So, he was my only customer -

but he was a weird customer,

because he did not want to go to see the holy sites,

he wanted to look at the walls and paint the walls.

-This is amazing.

-And there's a store where you can go in

and they encourage you to paint the wall.

And, even, I run Banksy's hotel

but my hotel is not the only Banksy hotel in Bethlehem.

Hi. You are most welcome, come in, please.

It's a Banksy guest house.

Yeah, this is the sitting room.

It's a sharing room.

Every room has a toilet.

You can come in, please, welcome.

This is one of the bedrooms and it has this view.

We wanted to let the people come

and have the experience how to live surrounded by the wall

from three sides.

Banksy, he has a really nice face and nice mind.

He looks a gentleman -

but I won't tell how he looks like because I respect his anonymous...

..that he is anonymous.

This room, called Bristol, because he came from Bristol,

that's what he said.

We had the name of Banksy's Guesthouse about two years,

and then, in March, this Banksy's hotel, The Walled Off, appeared,

and now we might have to change the name because

the clients booked here

thinking that they're coming to Banksy's hotel,

and we have to deal with the manager in the hotel.

Oh, I can't say that!

Forget it! He will come and kill me!

That manager might run the official Banksy hotel now,

but he is actually from a family of carpenters,

and is taking Danny to an olive wood factory.

Oh.

HE LAUGHS

He's a bit rusty.

Maybe 20 years since I carved one of these like this.

Mind your fingers!

The olive tree is hugely important in Palestinian culture,

but thousands of families have seen their olive groves

enclosed by the wall and uprooted.

The wood is now used to produce souvenirs for tourists -

but Danny wants to find a way to reference trees

in The Alternativity.

Could you make me one of those that is as...

..as big as the stage?

Yes, how many metres do you want?

That's not a problem.

About five metres, four metres? Of course.

And it would be on the... it would be on the stage,

-and the nativity would happen under it.

-Oh? Of course.

Last night, Danny met Riham, a local director

who he hopes will help him create and cast The Alternativity.

I'm very, very excited about the ideas.

I have the connections,

I have the ability to, like, connect with different...

..people for this project.

And it's going to be a challenge,

because, yeah, it's a big thing, and you're not here, and...

Yeah, but I'm up for it.

-Wonderful.

-I had a good thought about it but I'm up for it.

-Oh, wonderful.

-I'm up for the challenge.

-Wonderful, wonderful.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bethlehem has the largest Christian population

in the occupied Palestinian territories -

but the nativity isn't just a Christian story,

and Danny's nativity needs to be relevant to all.

So, he's visiting the mainly Muslim city of Hebron.

Peace talks in the mid-'90s

carved the West Bank up into areas A, B and C,

under Palestinian, combined and Israeli control respectively -

but Hebron is especially contested,

with Jewish settlers occupying specific streets,

and sometimes even specific houses.

Here, the heavily defended settlers come and go as they please.

But Danny's guides, Fadi, a Christian,

and Said, a Muslim,

are both Palestinians...

-Yeah, I've got a passport.

-And this is my passport.

..and neither of them are allowed into the parts of Hebron

claimed by the settlers.

OK.

-Thank you.

-Bye-bye.

-Thanks, now.

-See you.

It's like a ghost town, isn't it?

It's like a western, isn't it?

It's like a showdown or something.

It's crazy to think like that,

but it makes you feel like that, doesn't it?

Danny, what does this do for the kind of...project in hand?

Well, it's kind of... It's sad, really, I suppose.

I mean, I do understand his thinking with the hotel

is to emphasise...the human story of a divided community, a divided line.

Art does reach, you know, beyond.

You don't want to be hopelessly romantic about it,

but it's one of the things that can transcend politics, you know?

So, that's extraordinary

to see a man out walking peacefully on the Sabbath with his wife,

and his child in a buggy,

and he's got an AK-47 or whatever the machine gun is.

It's a machine gun, on his...

So, his...

..statement that he's making about what he expects to find,

to protect his family, which is a natural instinct,

is terrifying, really. Um...

..and the Star of David on the doorways

which are declaring that, obviously, the...

..that, in these circumstances,

declaring that this is, this will become,

um, a settlement home, is shockingly reminiscent

of something we all...of one of the worst horrors of the world.

So... That's a bit mind-blowing, really.

Not all of Hebron has been settled.

In the main Muslim part of the city,

Fadi is taking Danny to meet some local women

who might be able to help him.

Hey, hello, I'm Danny.

-I'm Ula.

-Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

-Hey!

Beautiful theatre. Nice to see a theatre.

-And what's your name?

-Hey.

-Diana.

Diana, I'm Danny. Hi, nice to meet you.

There are some women in the community of Hebron,

they don't like to be shown on a stage or on a TV -

for example, Ula.

She doesn't like to be shown, because of her background.

-Yes.

-So, they found out that she can get the chance

through the puppets.

-Through puppeteering.

-So, she's not showing herself,

she will show the puppet.

SHE SPEAKS IN OWN LANGUAGE

SHE LAUGHS

THEY CHANT AND STAMP

Wow. Can we see your donkey?

HE TRANSLATES

SHE BRAYS

In this little town of Bethlehem,

the line between the past and present isn't always clear.

Banksy's ideas are full of modern references,

but Danny still has to decide how he will stage The Alternativity.

I was going to show you the storyboards that Banksy had sent.

-Ah.

-These are the original storyboards.

That's, er, the coolest storyboard ever.

It's quite nice, isn't it?

I know, I was very impressed by it.

That's more, also, like bringing the now and the past.

He is inclined to inspire us towards that.

-Yes.

-Whether that's appropriate or not is a very interesting question.

Images like that, which are highly suggestive and subversive,

in a way, you know, very ironic,

my instinct is, if you put that on to children,

if you use children, then you inject them with adult irony.

It's like humour, giving them humour that they don't understand...

-Yeah.

-..and makes adults laugh.

-Totally.

I'm not... You know, there's something horrible about that.

You have a duty to protect their own development,

rather than force-feed it or exploit it, you know?

You can contextualise it in different ways.

The painting that's on the wall behind them

when they enter the car park

would give a completely different context.

You know, if it's Hillary and Donald Trump,

as it is at the moment,

that gives you, visually, gives you a completely different contexts.

Or if it is a Banksy that paints over it,

that's one of his pictures of the children

-spinning around the watchtower in Gaza...

-Yeah, yeah.

..it gives a completely different...

-That would be amazing.

-It gives a completely different...

I really don't like that, to be our background.

-HE LAUGHS

-There's enough of Trump.

-There's enough of him anyway.

-It's enough!

Working for an invisible man is new to Danny,

but I have been working with his mad, crazy ideas

since almost 15 years,

and I know how to make things happen.

MUSIC: Silent Night

"Dear Banksy..."

It's clear that he's going to have to get involved.

I don't think the evening can work

without some contribution from him, really -

and Riham was very keen that the entryway,

which is so dominated at the moment by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,

that should be a Banksy, really.

How - practically, how that happens, I've no idea,

but that's not, you know...

We need his involvement.

"Danny, thanks, good notes.

"The play.

"I don't see why we should make too much work for ourselves.

"I think we should change the traditional nativity

"as little as possible, whilst emphatically altering the message.

"I will absolutely be involved as much as you and Riham need me to be,

"and I'm very glad we have a not uncritical voice

"working with us on this.

"You are absolutely correct that children aren't paints,

"they can't be used to create images beyond who they are.

"Much as that sounds like it could be super manipulative and fun"!

I wanted to double-check with you what might be possible here.

This pylon.

We wanted to attach a wire to it,

as though we were jacking the electricity.

And we would run the wire from here to the balcony.

-Yeah.

-And on that wire would be our Star of Bethlehem.

-That's fine.

-This would look like...

Just to tie something on it?

Yes, yes, yeah.

-All that's OK?

-It's OK, but in the end the Israeli army will decide.

The captain could stand there and say, "Stop the party,

"stop this gathering,

"make people leave." And they will do it.

Despite I'm the manager here,

I don't imagine bringing my children to an event next to the wall, er,

being watched by a military watchtower

and, like that tower, like,

snipers through that tower, and the other tower over there.

Already locals are tired and bored

of having this element in their life.

And I don't want to bring my children to look at this wall.

It's Christmas time so we don't want to see this wall.

If we said we're going to have real snow,

-would that bring people?

-I think so.

Yeah.

I was quite, not shocked isn't the word,

but quite surprised with the moment from Wisam today where he said

that we'd be hard-pushed to get a local audience.

He said nobody wants to come here.

If you live here, you don't want to take your kids to the wall in the

sight of watchtowers where there could be snipers.

And who wants to put their children in circumstances like that?

So that's a challenge, clearly.

It's only one of the challenges Wisam has been given by Banksy.

There is also a plan to mark the 100th anniversary of

the Balfour Declaration, when, with the stroke of a pen,

the British Government opened the door

to the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

This is the origin of the modern conflict in the Middle East.

Millions became refugees, thousands died,

and hundreds of thousands suffered...

because of this.

To acknowledge Britain's role in fuelling a century of conflict,

Banksy wants to drive his point home with a stunt to be unveiled at a

children's street party.

This sign will go on the reception desk on the 1st of November.

The rejection sign, instead of reception.

Danny has to go back to his day job as an internationally-renowned film

director, leaving Riham in charge until he returns.

But there is one missing element.

Banksy asked Danny to make an Alternativity for everyone,

and he has met Christians and Muslims here in the West Bank.

Hey, Danny. What's up, man?

-I've got to go.

-Are you leaving now?

-Yeah, thank you so much.

-Your car outside?

Yeah. Thank you so much for an amazing stay.

Most Jewish settlers live in fortified settlements accessible by

Israeli-only roads.

There are virtually no Jewish people in Bethlehem.

And Israeli citizens are warned

that entering any part of the city is dangerous.

It's very difficult, clearly,

and certainly I think one of Banksy's purposes is to try

and illuminate that, actually, although this is the same nation,

the chances to interact are reduced so enormously by this wall

and everything that comes with this wall, so that kind of division

means that it's very,

very difficult to get Israelis to come and visit, openly,

and certainly, obviously, to speak on camera about it,

so that's a big, big problem that we have.

Let's cause a little bit of angst.

Let's put Al Jazeera next to AP.

-Let's put them there.

-Yeah.

-Let's have CNN next to AP.

-Yeah.

PPC is Palestinian...

That should be a B. Broadcasting Company!

I think we should keep it as a spelling mistake, cos it's funnier.

The global news outlets will pick this up, A because it's Banksy,

B because it's Palestine.

People love stunts, they love big, brash stunts.

They love it! Love it.

Absolutely love it, because they're like, "Ooh, ooh,

"you've got my ear now.

"That's not normal, like Camilla ringing up and going, '"Hello,

"'we've got an event on, la, la, la.'"

I have a message for you from Banksy

and everyone at the Walled Off Hotel.

Now we hope you will join us in clapping as Her Royal Highness

will unveil a special message from us to you, the Palestinian people.

NATIONAL ANTHEM PLAYS DISTORTEDLY

Yay!

Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!

Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!

Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!

Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!

Not quite what we anticipated.

No.

No, it's not.

But, you know, it is what it is.

Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!

Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine!

A sorry, an apology of sorts from Her Majesty,

the Queen.

As a Palestinian, we are only put in one image to the outside world.

You know, we have to be political, or we have to be the victim.

I am always, as an artist, trying to challenge that,

try to show something else to the world.

With all respect to Banksy, all respect to Danny as well,

I have my own reasons to be part of this project.

First day, first introductory day, let's say,

to give a sense of what is the play, to get into the characters.

They have a lot of imagination - oh, my God!

SINGING

Tell me about Alisa?

Alisa?

She had that beautiful, such a beautiful voice.

She's very tall, though, isn't she?

But maybe that's good, having a very tall Mary!

THEY SING

OK, OK... Listen...

I wondered about whether, during the show,

whether there was a running gag of

somebody trying to create snow.

I bought boards of foam, and I put them in the blender.

Don't know what they call this material in English.

Like, they use this

to pack

TVs and washing machines with.

And then I brought snow machine.

But... I mean, this is a very small one,

so I want to try it from here as well.

OK. Let's go downstairs and look at it.

The Alternativity is shaping up to be a Christmas spectacle.

But for the parents, the wall is not an ideal location.

Some of them don't even tell their kids there is a wall.

They are worried, you know...

they're at the location.

Because it is, like,

near the checkpoint.

And it's...

You never know what might happen.

Sophia, her father got arrested two days ago.

I don't know if she will continue with us.

I have to check, actually.

Over a million Palestinians live in camps,

which they were settled in when their lands were occupied after 1948.

It's been alleged that Sophia's father leads the

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,

in the Dheisheh camp where her family lives.

Danny is in London, but everything is under control.

The snow is sorted.

Riham is making sure that everything is coming together.

Finding a donkey, it's not a problem to find a donkey in Bethlehem.

They're scared.

He's a big, fat donkey.

Careful. Don't stand behind the donkey, OK?

We have to go and see the other donkey.

I think he has a wound here in the face.

He's a mule.

Yeah - none of them will work, actually.

The angels, they are like, a gang.

I thought it would be really nice if they had,

like, telephones and they are texting.

So it's coming up, it's coming up. It's all details.

And just to get really surreal,

this is apparently what's happening right now, which is...

This is me, talking to you.

-The donkey. Is that going to happen?

-Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah.

We still need to cast him, you know!

Yeah. I've been trying to find the right donkey,

but it seems that we need a very specific one.

There will be lots of people, and a lot of music and lights,

and snow,

so you don't know what will be the reaction of the donkey,

cos I don't think any of these donkeys have such thing before.

There are donkeys. Let me...

HOOTS HORN

I'm going to...

Let's stop the truck.

HOOTS HORN

The children are visiting the hotel for the first time.

-Ooh!

-Oooh!

For some of them, it is also the first time they've been so close to

the wall.

Is it hot?

No. It's freezing!

It's definitely not snowing.

Yet. But it doesn't stop Bethlehem, and the Walled Off,

getting everything set for Christmas.

Ooh! Thank you.

Here we are. Here we are at the Walled Off.

Oh, my God, it's beautiful!

Oh, it's beautiful!

Oh, wow!

Oh, it's like a rock movie!

Yeah, I'm coming, I'm coming... Oh, yeah, the donkey!

Oh, amazing, it's a beautiful white one!

-Beep!

-Beep!

Hello!

How nice to see you.

Hey! Looks amazing.

-I know!

-I mean, it's like...

-Whoa!

-What is this?!

It's kind of quite groovy.

It's quite groovy.

We're doing great! We'll have a great show.

-Now we do a run.

-Great.

With the choir and everything.

OK, great.

THEY SING JINGLE BELLS

Well done! Well done.

# Jingle bells jingle bells

# Jingle all the way

# Oh what fun it is to ride

# On a one-horse open sleigh

# Hey!

# Jingle bells jingle bells... #

Where have you found him?!

He's amazing.

-This is beautiful.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She won't laugh, will she?

Keep coming...

Don't laugh.

This is incredibly beautiful, don't laugh.

Come on, boy. Come on.

Very beautiful.

Very, very beautiful.

I'm serious. I'm serious.

Blackout.

On the beginning I did not think that Banksy was going to come again to Bethlehem.

But I was kind of surprised when I got a call telling me that he is

coming to do something, but never explained to me what he wanted to do.

HE LAUGHS

With everything almost in place, there is only one tiny,

last-minute hitch.

We sent pictures to Banksy this morning,

and he did not like the stage, because it looks very modern

and this is not his style,

so we are painting this cardboard and we're going to stick on

the wall, we're going to ask the kids also to do some work with them.

And I'm expecting this, actually.

Always, like, last moment. Always crazy.

I've worked with kids a few times, and it's like,

one of the interesting things is you've got to be very,

very careful with them, respectful of their innocence, in a way,

and I hope we respected that.

We were warned that you might not get many Palestinians coming either,

because... They don't really want to be near this wall.

They want to be as far away from this wall as they can get.

Sophia's father is still detained in prison.

The act of culture is an enormously bonding experience that people grow

through. When you look at the wall,

you think how are they ever going to be able to do that together

across that wall, really? And you hope they achieve that.

It was great, it was really good.

I'm speechless, actually.

It was a real joyous thing, I think.

It felt like a very intimate show as well.

I'll never forget that sight of them covered in snow.

-Oh, they were... It was just...

-They were just like this.

-Yeah!

It was so...

-Looking at everything.

-That was so cool.

-It was really nice.

-When Alisa starts to sing...

-Yeah, my God.

-It's just like...

-It's beautiful, that, isn't it?

-I wanted to cry.

That's what I wanted in this show.

For all of us to feel like, proud and to have this feeling that we are...

we are doing this even despite of this situation.

# Hallelujah! #

We have this amazing energy and soul, and talent and art.