Unknowns

Nestled among the hills between Israel’s two great cities, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, lies the town of Beit Shemesh. It is one of Israel’s poorest cities. Most of its teenagers attend religious schools, and about half are never recruited for compulsory service in the IDF for religious reasons. There is no educational framework to absorb the many teens that drop out of high school, making a life of crime almost inevitable for them. The one chance they have to break free from all that is to enlist in the army.
“Unknowns” tells the story of a group of teens who dropped out of the state-religious school system and since got entangled in all sorts of petty crimes, making them ineligible for military service. Should they insist that they want to serve anyway, they will first have to prove that they abandoned crime and rehabilitated themselves. Easier said than done…
Synopsis:
In Beit Shemesh, at-risk kids who committed petty crimes have one chance to rehabilitate themselves. Instead of standing trial and being sent to prison, they can attend a special school, created just for them. Nine such boys from Beit Shemesh are attending this school. When a girl is raped in a nearby forest, these nine boys become the prime suspects.
Avner, the local police chief, decides to investigate the rape, even though the victim refuses to press charges. His wife Naomi is conflicted. Although she is loyal to her husband, she is also one of the school’s top teachers, and the suspects are “her boys.” Matters become even more complicated with the arrival of Yaniv, a businessman convicted of white-collar crimes, who “volunteers” at the school as a term of his parole. The delicate balance in the school starts to crumble, threatening everyone involved.
Yaniv, the “stranger,” who appeared in this remote little town straight from the bustle of big city life in downtown Tel Aviv, can certainly be arrogant and condescending. He feels that there is just one boy, Osher, whom he can “save” from that vicious circle of poverty and crime. Osher wants to break free too. He dreams of one day enlisting in the army and even has a girlfriend from a nearby kibbutz. If anything, he feels like he has one foot out the door and can escape a life of crime.
Yaniv and Osher develop a “father-son” relationship, but there is an ominous shadow looming over it – Menachem. Yes, Menachem and Osher are best friends. Unlike Osher, however, Menachem was born to be a gangster, and he has no plans to give that up. He already deals drugs from within the school, and put together his own little gang there by using his intimidating presence to his advantage. Now, he refuses to let go of Osher: not for Yaniv, not for the army, and not even for Osher himself!
Wasa, another student at the school, is the son of Ethiopian immigrants. He is preparing to perform on a reality show for young artists, hoping to use the exposure to launch a successful career as a recording star. But then he is arrested by Avner. All the early evidence seems to point to him as the rapist.
Just before he is arrested, Wasa discovers that the school has been fitted with secret security cameras, which record everything that goes on at the school 24/7. He is already handcuffed and on his way to the police vehicle, when he starts a picks a fight with Menachem. In fact, he really uses the brawl to whisper to warn Menachem about the cameras. They may have captured a big secret about the two of them from the night of the rape.
Menachem and two boys from his gang break into the school that night to search for the hard drive, where the video footage is stored. Yinon, a member of Menachem’s gang, decides to steal the hard drive and hide it, until he can see what Menachem is so desperate to hide. He waits for just the right moment to connect the hard drive to a computer and fast-forward through the footage from the night of the rape. What he sees leaves him stunned. The cameras captured Menachem and Wasa making out in the school that night. This is the big secret they both wanted to hide. They are both deeply closeted, but yes, they are gay.
Fearing that he will be outed, Wasa commits suicide in his prison cell. Avner, the police chief, hides from Naomi that Wasa, who was her favorite student, isn’t the rapist after all. The big lie starts eating him up from the inside and takes its toll on his relationship with his wife. Naomi is angry and disappointed with him. She finds consolation with Yaniv, the stranger from Tel Aviv, who feeds her doubts about her husband.
Wasa’s sudden death in prison, Yaniv’s appearance in the boys’ lives, and the rape investigation which reaches a dead end all take their brutal toll on the relationships between the boys and all the people surrounding them. It creates a rift, which cannot be mended. Everyone will now need to choose what’s best for them, even if it comes at someone else’s expense. Osher and Menachem were once the best of friends, but they each have a different goal in life. Now they will have to make a choice, even if it costs one of them his life.