The Green Prince: Sundance 2014 - review

A tense documentary from the Man on Wire team about a Hamas activist who spied for the Israeli secret service.

The Sundance film festival plays out in Park City, Utah, a former mining community pitched so high in the mountains that it has visitors constantly gulping for breath. Fortunately the event's organisers are prepared to ease the newcomers in slowly, with a smattering of press screenings on the opening day

 a gentle curtain-raiser ahead of the main festivities. This, I feel, affords us the chance to acclimatise.

The Green Prince is the first film out of the blocks, screening at what is the opening night gala in all but name, though ironically it's a picture that positively shuns the limelight and bolts for the shadows, the place it knows best. Nadav Schirman's terrific double-dealing documentary tells the story of Mosab Yousef, the cherished son of Palestinian firebrand and Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, who agrees to spy on his father for the Israeli secret service.

• theguardian.com, Friday 17 January 2014 10.24 GMT