Lea Tsemel, an Israeli defense attorney, represents Palestinians accused of civil disobedience, including acts of violence. Understandably, this makes her a controversial figure. "I always see the person behind the case," she tells a defendant's mother in the opening sequence. In the film, she recalls that her grandmother emigrated from Europe prior to the Holocaust. The family members who didn't join her were killed. As a university student in the 1960s, she believed that peace in the Middle East might be possible, but once she saw Palestinians forced from their homes, much like Jews during the war, her hopes faded. That's when she met her husband, journalist Michel Warschawksi, a fellow activist who has served time for his beliefs. In a 1999 interview on Israeli television, she tells the host, "Israelis have no right to tell Palestinians how to struggle." It's not that she believes terrorism is justified, but that the occupation is unjust, and that she benefits from it as an occupier (she grew up in Haifa, an Arab-Israeli town). She first came to prominence in 1972 when she defended Israelis accused of treason for making contact with the "enemy," in the case Palestinian revolutionaries across the border. They confessed because they were coerced, but their claims of torture fell on deaf ears. In 1981, she represented a group of Palestinians who killed several Israelis settlers their homeland. The trial led to nicknames that have stuck over the years, like "the devil's advocate." She's good at her job, but she isn't a miracle worker. In one of the trials that takes place during filming, a client gets 28 years for stabbing and injuring a bus driver and 11 passengers. He's disappointed, but she explains that he could've gotten a life sentence. In another case, she defends a 13-year-old accused of attempted murder, even though he wasn't the attacker. Police killed the perpetrator, his 15-year-old cousin, who caused the injuries (no one died). In order to protect the identities of some participants, like the minor defendant and a alleged suicide bomber, co-directors Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaiche use a combination of collage and rotoscope animation, a technique that works seamlessly. Throughout the film, Tsemel never once argues that a guilty defendant is innocent. She also acknowledges that she always loses her cases. She aims, instead, to see that her clients receive fair representation. In so doing, she has shed light on Israel's oppression of Palestinians. It hasn't made life easy for her husband and children, who appear in the film, but they support her tireless efforts, even though her daughter, Talila, doubts that the occupation will ever end. "Hope," Tsemel tells an associate, "is what keeps us going, otherwise, we would've given up a long time ago." Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)