Bermuda Festival offering 'Souvenirs' is a touching road trip documentary about fathers and sons.

The movie follows Israeli filmmaker Shahar Cohen and his 82-year-old-father Sleiman as they take their rattle trap car across Europe in search of the places that Sleiman was stationed as a soldier during World War II.

Shahar was at a low point during his life and career when his father suggested he make a movie about the Jewish Infantry Brigade which served in Italy during the Second World War.

This brigade was formed in 1944 and was part of the British Army. It consisted mostly of Middle-Eastern Jews. More than 30,000 Palestinian Jews volunteered to serve in the British Armed Forces, 734 of whom died during the war. While in Nazi Germany Jews were forced to wear the Star of David as a form of humiliation, members of the Jewish Brigade wore it on their uniforms as a symbol of defiance.

At first Shahar isn't particularly interested in making the movie until his father casually mentions that he may have left "souvenirs" when the Jewish Brigade regrouped in Holland, i.e. children. Now, finally, Shahar's interest is peaked.

And so they set off at cross purposes. Sleiman wants to make a movie celebrating the Jewish Brigade; Shahar secretly hires a Dutch investigator to track down his father's old girl friends.

Unfortunately, he doesn't have a lot to go on. "We're looking for Jenny in Eindhoven," he tells the researcher.

Part of Shahar's reluctance to originally make the movie stemmed from his own military service with the Israeli army, a touchy subject between he and his father. He has grown up thinking of his father as a war hero, but the long road ahead brings many surprising revelations.

The idea inherent in the film is that the two bond on the journey. The other brother was always the favourite and Shahar is the family "bum".

"I don't need a car replacement, I need a son replacement," Sleiman jokes.

But despite Sleiman's pretence it's pretty obvious there is a lot of love between these two. What's amazing is that Shahar never loses his temper with the old coot (at least not on camera). Being stuck with an 82-year-old crotchety father in a small car for days at a time would tax anyone's patience. Yet he remains patient.

They might have a few issues to set rights, but ultimately one might conjecture that they have always been close, even if they didn't realise it. The other brother is probably sitting at home stewing over how Shahar was always daddy's favourite. Why didn't HE get to go on a road trip?

Although Shahar is trying to make a movie, he is also attentive to his father's feelings, trying to shield him from painful realities.

Souvenirs will bring tears to your eyes at times, but it is also very funny. Sleiman has many witty things to say, and father and son tend to bond while admiring pretty girls passing by.

"I hope you are not putting obscenities in the film," Sleiman says to Shahar at one point. "You're not going to put that in are you?"

And of course he does.

Souvenirs is subtitled in English. It received its North American premiere at the 2007 San Francisco International Film Festival.

Shahar has also written another film, 'Wordless' which did not get very good reviews, and was possibly the source of the low-point in Shahar's life at the beginning of the film. He also directed another movie called 'Mini-Plus' in 2006.

** Souvenirs is screening on Thursday at 3.45 p.m. at Liberty Theatre.