More touching than overwhelming, Zaytoun is a well-meaning drama about the developing friendship of a 12-year-old Palestinian orphan, Fahed (Abdallah El Akal), and an Israeli fighter pilot, Yoni (Stephen Dorff), who is shot down on a mission over Lebanon in 1982. Fahed's ambition is to visit for the first time his family's long-deserted farm in Israel and plant an olive tree nurtured by his late father. To achieve this he overcomes his hatred of Israelis and frees Yoni, a PLO prisoner facing likely torture and death, and helps him cross the border. It's a fraught, somewhat unlikely journey, less exciting and complex than it might have been, followed by a rather laboured, uneventful sojourn in Israel. The most engaging aspect is the daily routine of Fahed's life as he fights to survive in battered Beirut.

Zaytoun is the work of Eran Riklis, the Israeli director who made the excellent Lemon Tree, a modern version of the story of Naboth's vineyard, which also centred on the preservation of a cherished tree that symbolised the continuation of Palestinian culture. It starred the formidable Hiam Abbass as a middle-aged Palestinian widow fighting to protect her West Bank lemon grove from the Israeli defence minister, who is moved into an adjoining house. Both films are highly schematic, but Lemon Tree is a tough, pessimistic movie with a core of resilient hope, while Zaytoun is a piece of ecumenical wish-fulfilment.