Facing the Forest (2001)

Alex Harari, a historian working on his PhD, gets a fire-watching job in a national forest in Israel. At first the lonely lookout seems an ideal place to write and research, until things start to look a little fishy. The business-like chief forester who hires him is not impressed with Alex's PhD thesis. The forester's taciturn son Aaron makes vague references to the previous fire-watchman's hasty departure. It turns out that Aaron is a religious fanatic who haunts the forest on strange errands. Then an attractive forestry secretary shows an unexpected interest in the new look-out guy and snoops into his research findings. There is a tight-lipped Bedouin caretaker who appears to know more than he lets on about the previous watchman. Things really heat up when Alex stumbles upon a valuable coin dating back to Crusader times and a ruin with an enigmatic portrait of a Crusader king. Suddenly, corpses are turning up or disappearing and Alex senses he is in great danger.