JTA: Before Oct. 7, your work did not focus on your Israeli identity. Why did you feel you had to make this movie?<\/p>\n
Nim Shapira: I\u2019ve always been vocal for peace. But then, October 7 happened, and the people that were my friends stopped speaking to me because I\u2019m Israeli. It\u2019s like the old saying, \u201cYou are the people you\u2019ve been waiting for.\u201d I just had to do it. I didn\u2019t want to do this film, and I had to do it.<\/p>\n
What did you learn about the people who were tearing down the posters? Were there moments where you felt like you understood what they were thinking?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what I wanted to explore in the film. I don\u2019t justify what they did, and I don\u2019t respect it, but this is a documentary. It\u2019s asking questions. It\u2019s not a film funded by this organization or that organization, or this country or that country. I\u2019m asking for empathy, and if I\u2019m asking for empathy, I should also have empathy for the other side, and I should also understand their motives.<\/p>\n
\t Creative director and filmmaker Nim Shapira (Courtesy)<\/p>\n I would say that the people who tore down the posters live on a spectrum. These were people from in their teens to people who are retired, every ethnicity, every background, and every age group. And that\u2019s what strikes me the most. There were so many people without skin in the game who joined this cause of taking down these posters.<\/p>\n Some people who tore down the posters did lose family members in Gaza because of Israeli airstrikes. Some people who tore down the posters \u2014 they didn\u2019t read what was on the signs. They were told that this was Israeli propaganda funded by the government, and they thought that it needed to be removed. Some of them are college students who thought it was the cool thing to do. And some are antisemites.<\/p>\n So I don\u2019t want to put a label on the entire group of people who tore down the posters, because there are different scenarios in which posters were torn. In any case, this was an attack on freedom of speech, and this was anti-American. And there are enough lampposts in New York to share their suffering as well.<\/p>\n What do you hope viewers will take away from seeing \u201cTorn\u201d?<\/p>\n Empathy is all about putting yourself in someone else\u2019s shoes. I honestly don\u2019t think that people can put themselves in other people\u2019s shoes, because you can never know what another person is going through, but you can step outside of your own shoes for a quick moment. So that\u2019s all I\u2019m asking.<\/p>\n I\u2019m asking for the people who pulled down the posters to think about these victims and hostages who did nothing wrong. And I\u2019m also asking for understanding from, let\u2019s say, my side, to understand that the number one reason why people tore down the posters is that the death toll in Gaza kept rising throughout this war.<\/p>\n What has been most surprising about the reception?<\/p>\n I was able to have a film screened in Ivy League universities from Columbia to Harvard to Stanford to NYU. I\u2019m very proud of that. I\u2019m very proud that some of the screenings had people from the encampments. I spoke with American Muslims. I spoke with people from Jordan and from Egypt. I also spoke with Chinese and Venezuelans \u2014 I spoke to everyone who came to the screenings. I think maybe the most surprising thing was that there was a Q&A that I couldn\u2019t come to \u2014 people just stayed in the theater and talked until the usher told them to leave.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Now there are good reasons to remove hostage posters \u2014\u00a0all of the living hostages are home. Why is your movie still worth seeing?<\/p>\n For two reasons. First, the hostage families with their loved ones still in Gaza \u2014 they are asking for us to stay in the fight. They still need us.<\/p>\n These hostages that were murdered, first kidnapped and then murdered \u2014 they are not just Israeli. They are American, and they are also from Nepal, Thailand and Tanzania. They are Christian and Muslim and Buddhists and Jews. People from all religions are captive right now because their only sin was to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and their families deserve to bring them home for a proper burial.<\/p>\n But also, my film is not about Israel or Palestine. My film is about New York and America. I\u2019m dying for the day that the film will be irrelevant, but we are more tribal and polarized than ever. We exist in different echo chambers and different silos. The poster war did not just tear down the posters, but also tore down the social fabric of the city. We are the most diverse city on the planet, so if we can\u2019t sit down and talk to one another, what are we doing here? We have the biggest Jewish population. We have a huge Muslim population. Antisemitism is at a record high; there\u2019s also Islamophobia that is rising.<\/p>\n But these are not just problems for the Jews or the Muslims. This is a societal problem and the film mostly asks questions. It asks: Can multiple things be true at the same time? Why is empathy a limited resource, and can we have disagreements without dehumanizations? So yes, the film is still much more relevant than ever.<\/p>\n
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