The Palestine Laboratory, a documentary reviewed
- Antony Cirocco
- Feb 12
- 5 min read
Film Title: The Palestine Laboratory
Dir: Antony Loewenstein
Release Date: 23, May 2025
Review by Antony Cirocco
The Palestine Laboratory is a documentary mini-series, directed by Award Winning Journalist, Author and Filmmaker, Antony Loewenstein. The Documentary was released on Al Jazeera English and has since received award nominations in Australia and abroad.
This documentary has a humble budget, relying heavily on archival footage sourced from a number of news channels. Al Jazeera is just one of them. The Director did travel extensively to make this documentary, to the U.S.A., Israel, Gaza and Palestine. This enabled the director to speak to high-quality witnesses and experts with firsthand knowledge of events.
This is Australian investigative journalism at its best. Well researched and investigated by a seasoned journalist, now documentary director.
This documentary looks in detail at the culture of surveillance in the Israeli Military and its various subcontractors as they develop weapons and integrate tech and even Ai to identify persons of interest. It goes further to explore the commercial realities of the weapons industry, modern conflict and its impact on innocent people.
This film is well worth your time on a number of levels. It takes a factual look at the response (in part) of the Israeli Military post the horror of Oct 7, 2023. If you are looking for unbiased context, you will get that in this documentary. If you would like a broader understanding of the use of Ai in conflict and war zones, you will get that too. If you want to see the impact of that technology on innocent civilians, caught in war zones…you will get that also. However, after digesting this documentary, you will leave the experience more knowledgeable than when you went in. More people need to see films like this, and it should be available on any streaming service, but according to “Just Watch” the streaming service finder app “Sorry, The Palestine Laboratory is not available at the moment” and therein lies the tragedy. This film, nominated for a Walkley Award for Documentary Journalism, can’t find a viewing platform in Australia or anywhere else for that matter…but you can find it on YouTube. Click on the link below.
Loewenstein, the Director of the film, asks broader questions about the philosophical meaning of surveillance, its legitimacy in and of itself and takes a detailed journey to discover the impact of Ai driven surveillance.
Originally a book “The Palestine Laboratory: how Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world” was first published in 2023. It was an award winner, most notably a Walkey Book Award in 2023.
This Documentary film is timely, released during the height of the Gaza War, it probed into the philosophy and process undertaken by the Israeli Government. It goes further, though, to explore how this tech is packaged and sold to other governments around the world. It’s the emerging tech, combined with Ai and modern weaponry, where this documentary shifts from investigative documentary to horror story. It’s concerning for the citizens in the Middle East on both sides of the conflict, but there is a wider philosophical concern that will permeate conflicts around the world, both present and in the future.
Much of the b-roll footage is news footage and recut military industry corporate footage, but by far the majority of the footage is observational, with Loewenstein as a guide, on screen, to explore areas on the border of Israel and engage with people on the ground in Israel and Palestine. Much of the rest is interviews conducted on location, interspersed by explanatory animations.
There is less creative documentary filmmaking here; the focus is on factual storytelling in an expository sense.
The film stylistically doesn’t break any new ground here, but it doesn’t need to. There is plenty to drive the narrative here, in terms of the rollout of events and factual revelations; it’s compelling. When the Director starts interviewing witnesses and experts, this film shows it’s class. Loewenstein has great access to the appropriate voices to tell this story, and his interview style is patient, respectful and methodical.
Loewenstein is a seasoned journalist; he takes an objective stance, and his focus is investigative journalism. He doesn’t take sides; he hovers above the easy graphic presentation of a visual representation of the conflict and instead looks at the players in the Israeli Government and the military industry, the tech and elements of the surveillance systems. He remains neutral in his conduct of the interviews as he speaks to Palestinians and Israelis.
Like a screenplay based on an award-winning novel, this documentary has been researched over a number of years by a seasoned journalist. Loewenstein brings a degree of credibility and integrity to his work and has done it a number of times. He is a seasoned journalist with over 20 years of experience and has written for, in his own words, “The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera English, The New York Review of Books and many others.”
When I look for good journalism, this is the track record I would expect to see from a leader in the field. An emerging documentarian or Journalism School graduate would not be able to bring this level of research and integrity to their work. I look for this as the documentaries I watch become more serious in tone, particularly in relation to war and conflict.
This film explores, like no other film, modern surveillance, digital dominance and oppression and our worst fears in regard to Ai subgating the human to the digital. It’s a factual version of the 1984 film “The Terminator”, minus the robots and the soundtrack. Far from instilling paranoia amongst viewers, it captures the status quo of the use of emerging technology and the effects it has on everyday people.
This documentary film is an excellent example of investigative journalism; it’s timely, philosophical and contemporary in its subject matter.
The only downside to this film is it is not available on a streaming service as a standalone documentary film…quick, someone snap it up.
We will look back in generations to come when we can only watch documentaries made outside Australia (because the funding by then will have evaporated completely) and will reflect on what was possible with independent investigative journalism. As the cultural tide sweeps many independent documentaries out to sea and into other careers, this documentary shines as what is possible, with a seasoned journalist, a dollop of funding and the most valuable filmmaking commodity of all…time.
I rate this one highly, 4.5 stars out of 5.
Find out more about the Director here
Review by Antony Cirocco
Check out the film on youtube here -
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