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In this drama, Alex Harari (Gal Zayad) is an Israeli graduate student who, while completing his dissertation, takes a job as a caretaker in a forest preserve, watching over the woodlands and keeping an eye out for fires. The work is quiet and allows Alex to get some plenty of reading and writing done, but in his spare time, he enjoys hiking through the woods, and one day he discovers what's left of a castle that is purported to have belonged to a 12th century Christian knight -- a real find for the young student, who is researching the Crusades. As Alex digs through the rubble, he uncovers evidence suggesting the knight may have been a student of Islam at one time, which would demand a major reappraisal of his life and work as history now knows it. However, even more disturbing is Alex's discovery of a dead body, which matches the description of the man who tended the forest before Alex. Before Alex can report finding the body, the corpse disappears, and his suspicions of foul play are piqued when his boss (Yisrael Poliakov) and his son (Oved Zaituvi) both firmly refuse to discuss Alex's bizarre findings or the matter of the missing caretaker. Facing the Forest was produced for Israeli television, though it made the rounds of the international film festival circuit before making its debut on the small screen.