{"id":135450,"date":"2025-09-11T05:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T05:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/135450\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T05:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T05:42:07","slug":"tiff-premiere-of-oct-7-documentary-the-road-between-us-met-with-protests-standing-ovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/135450\/","title":{"rendered":"TIFF premiere of Oct. 7 documentary The Road Between Us met with protests, standing ovation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Director Barry Avrich and retired Israeli general Noam Tibon, right, arrive on the red carpet to promote The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, on Wednesday.Chris Young\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The world premiere of The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, one of the most controversial screenings in the Toronto International Film Festival\u2019s half-century history<\/a>, was greeted with a standing ovation Wednesday afternoon both before and after its sold-out screening. <\/p>\n

Directed by prolific Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich, the documentary retraces the journey of retired Israel Defence Forces Major-General Noam Tibon as he and his wife Gali race from Tel Aviv to their son\u2019s home on the Nahal Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border on Oct. 7, 2023, the day that Hamas militants attacked Israel. <\/p>\n

After TIFF<\/a> initially accepted Avrich\u2019s film into its 2025 lineup, the doc was pulled because, according to festival organizers at the time, \u201cgeneral requirements for inclusion in the festival\u201d were not met. <\/p>\n

After discussions between TIFF organizers and the filmmaking team, with Canadian politicians on municipal, provincial and federal levels decrying the film\u2019s withdrawal, the two sides reached a resolution<\/a> shortly before this year\u2019s festival began. <\/p>\n

While the movie made its debut inside Roy Thomson Hall, TIFF\u2019s largest venue that is reserved for \u201cgala\u201d events, the doc did not receive additional public screenings nor specific showings for members of the press and industry, opportunities that are typically afforded to official festival selections. (In an interview with The Globe and Mail<\/a> a day before the screening, TIFF chief executive Cameron Bailey noted that the decision to reprogram the film came once the festival schedule had largely been locked.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can talk all day long about how there were no press and industry screenings, but we arrived here today and we will release this film internationally. And hopefully people want to see it,\u201d Avrich, alongside Noam and Gali, said during the film\u2019s postscreening Q&A session, moderated by veteran Canadian journalist Lisa LaFlamme. <\/p>\n

Canadian director of Oct. 7 TIFF documentary The Road Between Us on festival\u2019s reversal: \u2018Watch the film, and make up your own mind\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

The screening, which took place just a little more than midway through the 11-day festival, proceeded largely without incident. Ticketholders walked into the venue past a sizable police presence, which outnumbered a vocal contingent of protesters \u2013 the east side of a closed-to-traffic Simcoe Street populated by demonstrators holding Palestinian flags, the west side filled with those holding Israeli and Canadian flags. Security to get inside the hall was also atypically rigorous, with the slow pace of inspections ensuring that the film started 15 minutes late.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protestors gathered outside Roy Thomson Hall before Wednesday’s premiere.COLE BURSTON\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Inside the theatre, the atmosphere was warm and appreciative, though occasionally charged. When Bailey came onstage to introduce the film, the audience greeted him with both polite applause and a smattering of boos. <\/p>\n

\u201cThank you for being here today to watch the powerful story that unfolds in this film, a story of a family under threat,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cIn an environment of rising and dangerous antisemitism, I want to apologize for the hurt that we caused. At TIFF, we believe in the universal power of stories onscreen to help empathize with one another even when those stories might challenge our comforts. Today\u2019s screening is an important one, and I ask each one of you here to enjoy in the collective act of simply watching a film together with openness and respect.\u201d <\/p>\n

TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey says reversals around Oct. 7 documentary \u2018caused a lot of pain\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

The audience, which was peppered with moviegoers wearing yellow ribbons symbolizing solidarity with the hostages held by Hamas, largely watched the film in hushed silence. Still, some of the film\u2019s more violent moments \u2013 including glimpses of images culled from body-cam footage live-streamed by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack \u2013 provoked gasps.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the most emotional film we\u2019ve ever made, and I still come back to \u2026 this is a story about family, and not politics, for me as a filmmaker,\u201d Avrich told LaFlamme during the postscreening conversation. \u201cIt\u2019s a film about people who I love, and I love their story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noam Tibon, whose entrance after the screening was greeted with cheers, echoed his director\u2019s sentiment onstage. \u201cFamily is basically everything that we get, and this is worldwide. This is the most important thing that we have in our lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film, populated by equal amounts of talking-head footage, clips from the attacks, and footage of the Tibon family retracing their steps on Oct. 7, is constructed as a ticking-clock thriller about one man on a mission. It is largely absent of geopolitical history save for a 1956 clip of Edward R. Murrow explaining the creation of Israel, which bookends the film, and some brief contemporary glimpses of the Gaza war.<\/p>\n

Yet issues of the war and the destruction in Gaza did surface during LaFlamme\u2019s postscreening interview. While asking Gali about her thoughts on Israel\u2019s future, LaFlamme\u2019s mention of the country\u2019s \u201coverwhelming use of force\u201d and the Gaza Health Ministry\u2019s estimated death toll of 64,000 Palestinians was greeted with loud jeers and audience members yelling, \u201cHamas numbers!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI speak for myself, if that\u2019s okay,\u201d Gali responded, to applause. \u201cThe war on Gaza should have stopped a long time ago. It would do good to everyone in the region, but especially to Israel. We could have had our hostages back a long time ago. \u2026 In short, many lives could have been saved, and I hope it\u2019s not too late. We can still end the war, bring the hostages back, and bring peace upon the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cineplex Pictures will theatrically distribute The Road Between Us in Canada later this fall. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Director Barry Avrich and retired Israeli general Noam Tibon, right, arrive on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,43,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,41,39,42,40,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-135450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135450","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=135450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}