{"id":133628,"date":"2025-09-10T11:39:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T11:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/133628\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T11:39:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T11:39:08","slug":"with-oct-7-film-finally-set-to-premiere-at-tiff-director-says-audience-should-be-the-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/133628\/","title":{"rendered":"With Oct. 7 film finally set to premiere at TIFF, director says audience should be the judge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Retired Israeli military general Noam Tibon was enjoying a quiet morning on Oct. 7, 2023, when he received a text from his son, Amir, that he never could have expected.<\/p>\n

Hamas was in his family’s kibbutz, Amir told his father, and they were killing people.<\/p>\n

“At that moment, [I made] a decision that I’m using all my skills, all my experience, everything, in order to save my family,” Tibon told CBC News. “And I think this was the most important decision that I took on that day.”<\/p>\n

So he\u00a0headed out on a 14 hour journey\u00a0to save his son’s family, completely unaware of what danger might lie ahead.<\/p>\n

Tibon says his\u00a0story is about the lengths we go to for family.\u00a0And director Barry Avrich, who turned that\u00a0story into the documentary\u00a0The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,\u00a0is excited to have his movie\u00a0judged by audiences at long last.<\/p>\n

Documentary pulled, then reinvited<\/p>\n

The film\u00a0has been on a roller-coaster ride since Aug. 13, when TIFF pulled the film from its lineup<\/a>\u00a0over concerns about footage rights and security issues, though the festival said at the time it was\u00a0still trying to work through those concerns with the filmmakers.<\/p>\n

That decision sparked fierce backlash, including from Israeli politicians<\/a> and Jewish groups<\/a> from\u00a0Canada and abroad.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The next day, both parties\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that they’d ironed out the concerns, and that the documentary would screen at this year’s\u00a0festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now,\u00a0Avrich says the decision to see the film or not rests with the audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“If you don’t want to go, don’t go. If you don’t want to buy a ticket, don’t buy a ticket,” the Canadian director told CBC News.<\/p>\n

Already, the film has drawn demonstrations<\/a>. Over the weekend, a few dozen protesters waved Palestinian flags and brought blankets smeared with fake blood\u00a0as props. One protester told The Canadian Press that he was worried about the festival “art-washing” Israel’s military actions in the Gaza strip.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Avrich says it’s OK if some people don’t like the film, as the point of festivals is to expose people to new ideas and generate discussion.<\/p>\n

“That’s what it’s about,” he\u00a0said, adding that TIFF should\u00a0be “bringing audiences to films sometimes that make them feel uncomfortable.”<\/p>\n

TIFF disinvite\u00a0‘a very tough day’<\/p>\n

Avrich says he was “extraordinarily excited” when he first found out in July that his film had been accepted to the festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He says that around that time, TIFF organizers had questions about some of the footage he used \u2014 specifically, they wanted to make sure that the documentary used real footage rather than re-created scenes, and that video taken by Hamas was properly identified.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Avrich says his film team always intended to properly label Hamas footage in the final cut, and that there are no re-created scenes in the film, so he was confident they could work those details out with the festival.<\/p>\n

But he\u00a0says concerns about how the audience would react to the film and whether including it would allow for the “right mix in terms of the programming for the festival” came up as well, which he says was what\u00a0ultimately led to the film being disinvited.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While he’s had films rejected from festivals before, Avrich said this decision was particularly difficult. “Once you’ve been accepted, to then find out you’re not in anymore \u2026 it was a very tough day,” he\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

\"ATIFF CEO Cameron Bailey, seen at a news conference on Aug. 20, apologized for any hurt caused by the decision to pull Avrich’s documentary from the festival lineup before adding it back the next day. (CBC)<\/p>\n

TIFF didn’t reply to specific questions from CBC News, but CEO Cameron Bailey has previously apologized<\/a> for the pain that removing the film caused, and for confusion regarding the festival’s requirements.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0joint statement from Bailey and Avrich following the final decision to include the documentary in the lineup,\u00a0read in part, “TIFF’s communication around its requirements did not clearly articulate the concerns and roadblocks that arose and for that, we are sorry.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Achieving balance in a lineup of films is an important part of putting together a festival, Avrich says, adding\u00a0that he believes TIFF’s slate achieves that balance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Voice of Hind Rajab and Palestine 36 both tell the stories of Palestinians and are screening at TIFF this year.<\/p>\n

“You can’t ignore complicated stories from either side, from any region,” Avrich said. “If you’re gonna tell one story, then let’s look at another story and make sure that you’re giving an audience an opportunity to look at different perspectives.”<\/p>\n

\"aTibon says retracing his attempts to save his family for Avrich’s documentary wasn’t always easy, but that he hopes the finished movie will make viewers think about what they’d do to keep their own families safe. (TIFF)Film’s subject\u00a0heartened by support<\/p>\n

For his part, Tibon\u00a0was heartened by the support from\u00a0people around the world who called for TIFF\u00a0to return the\u00a0film\u00a0back to its\u00a0lineup.<\/p>\n

He\u00a0says retracing his attempts to save his family\u00a0for Avrich’s documentary wasn’t always easy, nor was watching the footage in the final film, which he says took him right back to the day of the attack.<\/p>\n

“I was in combat all my life. So I saw bodies, but I never saw such \u2026 terrible scenes like in October 7,” Tibon said.<\/p>\n

He hopes the movie will make viewers\u00a0think about their own families, and what they’d do to keep them safe.<\/p>\n

“Each one of us who has a family, who has kids, grandkids, this is our entire world. This is the most important thing to our life,” he\u00a0said. “My goal is that \u2026 it will give people courage to take action.”<\/p>\n

WATCH |\u00a0He moved his family to a border kibbutz \u2014 then Oct. 7 happened:\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

He moved his family to a border kibbutz \u2014 then Oct. 7 happened<\/p>\n

One year after the Oct. 7 attacks, Israeli journalist Amir Tibon tells CBC\u2019s Matt Galloway about what happened when Hamas-led militants attacked his Israeli border kibbutz and how his father, a retired IDF general, raced through danger to save his family. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retired Israeli military general Noam Tibon was enjoying a quiet morning on Oct. 7, 2023, when he received…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337],"class_list":["post-133628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}