The story of a lonely young boy growing up in Harlem. Using a semi-documentary technique, the film-makers realistically capture the hostile environment which leads the boy to delinquency. The youth is sent to Wiltwyck School for rehabilitation, where a psychiatrist and counselor try to break through the wall of silence which the boy uses to hide his fear and bitterness.

An Israeli father and son are forced to take refuge in an underground shelter upon realizing that Israel is under missile attack. Both father and son must now accustom themselves to the new reality of life in the shelter. Dealing with day to day troubles of food and water but also with the death of the family's mother six months earlier. Slowly the son begins to realize that there are secrets in the shelter that his father is keeping from him.