Jim Hanon took home the award at the deadCENTER Film Festival for “Best Oklahoma Film” for his documentary “Little Town of Bethlehem.”

The film tries to shed a new light on the centuries old Israeli Palestinian conflict by talking to three men, Sami Awad a Palestinian Christian, Ahmad Al’ Azzeh a Palestinian Muslim and Yonatan Shapira, an Israeli Jew who have all taken a pledge of nonviolence to help end the fighting.

Hanon, who is based in Oklahoma, talked after his film ended about the struggles that went in to making his documentary and the importance he sees in the message of his three characters.

“Every situation you saw in the movie, I was in there,” Hanon said. “So I was tear gassed and other different things and I have made a lot of different films but I was never afraid while making a film until this one.”

They know the history, and so they know unless something changes that history is going to continue to repeat itself. They have been fighting forever but these guys are starting to look and say they don’t want their children to inherit this so they are trying to change it.”

-Adam Kemp