An award-winning documentary has provided Palestinian and international viewers with a rare inside look into the first Palestinian intifada. Saed Andoni, the co-producer and driving force behind “The Wanted 18” was a high school student at the time of the Palestinian uprising that began in 1987 and ended with the Madrid peace talks and the Oslo Accord. Andoni, now in his early 40s, told Al-Monitor that it took him five years and $1 million to produce the film that focuses on one small story. In the process, however, the film has succeeded in giving an authentic and creative narrative of the first Palestinian intifada. The film has been shown at the Toronto International Film Festival and won Best Documentary of the Arab World at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival. It also received a rare positive review from Variety magazine.

The film focuses on the fate of 18 cows that Palestinians from the small town of Beit Sahour decided to buy from an Israeli kibbutz to implement the intifada’s main nonviolent goal of independence and self-sufficiency.

The heroes of the film are school principals, pharmacists, housewives, doctors, agriculturalists and high school students. These urban civilians decided in 1987 to put the political theories and Palestinian ambitions of getting rid of the occupation into practice. Following the well-known American cry of "no taxation without representation," these heroes and their tightly knit Palestinian Christian community declared civil disobedience and refused to pay taxes to the Israeli occupiers. Knowing that their nonviolent act would invite the full force of the Israeli occupation, they decided to create victory gardens on their balconies and small pieces of unused lands. To supply the town with milk, they decided to buy cows and take up the challenge of looking after these cows and distributing their milk.