The Billboard from Bethlehem screened at the 2009 White Sands International film Festival, and received the Best Documentary Award for the 2009 Reelheart International Film Festival.Writer, director, editor and producer Bruce Barrett, in is debut film, tackles an ancient conflict on which he sheds a light of new hope. In this documentary, the owner of an American Billboard Company joins forces with The Combatants for Peace, an organization of former Palestinian and Israeli soldiers, to create an historical billboard. The billboard depicts a Palestinian and an Israeli soldier laying aside their guns and about to shake hands, a picture that is later painted by a group of 100 Israeli and Palestinian children in the West Bank, with their parents looking on. Is the Billboard a manifestation of hope? A monumental symbol for the possibility of peace? Or a McGuffin, enabling a film audience to hear Israelis and Palestinians talk about the conflict in their own words? With historical footage, factual footnotes, and commentary by members of the the Combatants for Peace, this film condenses the essentials of this conflict into a digestible format, and gives it faces and voices. As the director asks in the opening line of the film, “When you think about the Holy Land, do you think about religion or people?” He offers us this extraordinary opportunity to choose the latter.