It’s been a week of extraordinary emotion in Israel as the last surviving hostages seized by Hamas on October 7, 2023 have finally been reunited with their families. For other families there is only grief as Hamas, under terms of a negotiated ceasefire, releases the bodies of some hostages killed during their captivity. A handful of families experience the agony of not knowing whether the remains of their loved ones will ever be returned.
The family of Liat Beinin Atzili and her husband Aviv Atzili understand those emotions at the deepest level, having lived with excruciating uncertainty over the fate of Liat and Aviv, who were grabbed by Hamas on October 7 in the midst of a murderous attack on their kibbutz, and spirited off to Gaza. The story of how Liat’s parents – American Israeli couple Yehuda and Chaya Beinin – coped with this family crisis is told in the Oscar-contending documentary Holding Liat, winner of the top nonfiction prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
Director Brandon Kramer and his brother, producer Lance Kramer, are distant relations of the Beinins.
“When we found out that Liat and Aviv went missing, we called the [family] as relatives, not at all thinking we were going to make a film,” Brandon Kramer explained as he and his brother participated in discussion following a screening of Holding Liat as part of Deadline’s virtual event series For the Love of Docs. “In that conversation they told us that they were getting no response from the Israeli government, and they were planning to come to our hometown, Washington DC, to try to advocate for her release because Liat is an American citizen as well. And in that conversation, we decided that we should pick up our camera.”
Brandon added, “Our relatives had been thrust into the center of a geopolitical crisis, and as we began to film, we saw that what they were going through was so different than any of the narratives that we were seeing in the media and on social media and felt this responsibility to see their experience through.”
Yehuda Beinin in ‘Holding Liat’
Meridian Hill Pictures
Part of what made the narrative so distinct was Yehuda Beinin’s desire – even insistence – to speak to the political dimensions of the hostage crisis and the Israeli government’s devastating retaliatory attack on Gaza.
“Within days of Liat being taken, he was very vocal in saying that ‘I don’t want my daughter’s or son-in-law’s pain or the trauma that my family is going through to be used to justify further violence against Palestinians,’” Brandon said. “And we felt that that was a perspective that was really, really urgent and needed in this moment.”
Advisers counseling the family on the best way to work with the Biden administration to seek Liat and Aviv’s release essentially told Yehuda not to be so outspoken. Even Yehuda’s wife Chaya and their other daughter, Tal Beinin, expressed reservations about his bold approach. The film reveals, in a subtle manner, that speaking out became Yehuda’s way of coping with incredibly wrenching circumstances.
“Where the line is drawn between his politics and his emotional response is very blurry at best,” Lance Kramer observed. “What we saw was that politics and leaning into his positionality around the conflict was a way for him to deal with what was otherwise an incomprehensible level of grief and trauma. And it had a purpose as well, and it was effective in some respects, but it also was a way to just wake up in the morning and function.”
Lance added, “Not everyone was processing their own emotions the same way. And so we thought that it was important to also not just see how he was showing up, but also the dissonance and the difference within the family. And ultimately, I think one of the great catharses that the film offers in the end is being able to see some of those walls break down within Yehuda.”
The emotional walls broke down after Liat finally was released after 54 days in captivity. Her husband Aviv – father of her children – held in a separate location from Liat in Gaza, was killed and his body returned a short time after Liat emerged to freedom. The filmmakers and Liat and her family then faced a scenario perhaps unique in the history of documentary cinema.
“She’s coming out of 54 days in captivity. Twelve hours later she’s discovering that her husband was killed. She’s grieving that loss and the shock of this moment. And she’s also finding out that a documentary has been made for the last 54 days following her family’s experience,” Brandon said. “There was a process of giving her a lot of power and agency in determining if and how her experience would be a part of this film. And thankfully she agreed and really felt it was important.”
Director Brandon Kramer (R) and producer Lance Kramer on stage after being awarded the Berlinale Documentary Award at the Berlin Film Festival on February 22, 2025.
JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP via Getty Images
Critics have praised Holding Liat for the sensitive way it explores a story that by its nature cannot be disentangled from a larger explosive geopolitical context. The documentary has screened around the world, including Israel, Poland, Brazil, Hong Kong, and Australia. On Tuesday, it screened at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival in Arkansas, only a day after the release of the last surviving Israeli hostages.
“It’s been really extraordinary to us to see how people have been connecting with the humanity of the family,” Lance observed, “and appreciating that even in their differences there’s love and connection and that the representation of people who are also navigating their differences together — even amidst something like this conflict that is so polarizing and so painful with so much suffering of Israelis and Palestinians and people abroad as well — that people who were directly impacted could not just confront these differences together but also open up their lives and be vulnerable. To share that with the world, I think has just been tremendous to see how people have respected that.”
Lance continued, “There’s also people who have been obviously very challenged by the film. And that’s important too because even that kind of discourse has been very civil and it’s opened up space for having those kinds of conversations, I think where otherwise they’ve been very, very difficult, if not impossible to have.”
Holding Liat has been released in multiple territories around the world but has not been acquired yet for U.S. distribution. The Kramer brothers aren’t waiting for that to happen to bring their film to American cinemas.
“We’re planning to release the film theatrically in the U.S. starting in January, so it’ll open in New York at the Film Forum and then expand to LA and other cities shortly thereafter,” Lance shared. “We also didn’t want to wait for a ‘yes’ before making plans and also responding to the really urgent need to have this story out in the world.”
Watch the full conversation in the video above.
For the Love of Docs continues next Tuesday with a virtual screening of I Was Born This Way, directed by Daniel Junge and Sam Pollard. To RSVP for that event, click here.