![\"Yehuda](\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-deadline-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n\tIt\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe 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\u2019s parents \u2013 American Israeli couple Yehuda and Chaya Beinin \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
\n\tDirector Brandon Kramer and his brother, producer Lance Kramer, are distant relations of the Beinins.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhen 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,\u201d Brandon Kramer explained as he and his brother participated in discussion following a screening of Holding Liat as part of Deadline\u2019s virtual event series For the Love of Docs. \u201cIn 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBrandon added, \u201cOur 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\tYehuda Beinin in \u2018Holding Liat\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMeridian Hill Pictures<\/p>\n
\n\tPart of what made the narrative so distinct was Yehuda Beinin\u2019s desire \u2013 even insistence \u2013 to speak to the political dimensions of the hostage crisis and the Israeli government\u2019s devastating retaliatory attack on Gaza.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWithin days of Liat being taken, he was very vocal in saying that \u2018I don\u2019t want my daughter\u2019s or son-in-law\u2019s pain or the trauma that my family is going through to be used to justify further violence against Palestinians,\u2019\u201d Brandon said. \u201cAnd we felt that that was a perspective that was really, really urgent and needed in this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAdvisers counseling the family on the best way to work with the Biden administration to seek Liat and Aviv\u2019s release essentially told Yehuda not to be so outspoken. Even Yehuda\u2019s 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\u2019s way of coping with incredibly wrenching circumstances.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhere the line is drawn between his politics and his emotional response is very blurry at best,\u201d Lance Kramer observed. \u201cWhat 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tLance added, \u201cNot 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe emotional walls broke down after Liat finally was released after 54 days in captivity. Her husband Aviv \u2013 father of her children \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cShe\u2019s coming out of 54 days in captivity. Twelve hours later she\u2019s discovering that her husband was killed. She\u2019s grieving that loss and the shock of this moment. And she\u2019s also finding out that a documentary has been made for the last 54 days following her family\u2019s experience,\u201d Brandon said. \u201cThere 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tDirector 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.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJOHN MACDOUGALL\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n\tCritics 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.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s been really extraordinary to us to see how people have been connecting with the humanity of the family,\u201d Lance observed, \u201cand appreciating that even in their differences there\u2019s love and connection and that the representation of people who are also navigating their differences together \u2014 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 \u2014 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tLance continued, \u201cThere\u2019s also people who have been obviously very challenged by the film. And that\u2019s important too because even that kind of discourse has been very civil and it\u2019s opened up space for having those kinds of conversations, I think where otherwise they\u2019ve been very, very difficult, if not impossible to have.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHolding Liat has been released in multiple territories around the world but has not been acquired yet for U.S. distribution. The Kramer brothers aren\u2019t waiting for that to happen to bring their film to American cinemas.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re planning to release the film theatrically in the U.S. starting in January, so it\u2019ll open in New York at the Film Forum and then expand to LA and other cities shortly thereafter,\u201d Lance shared. \u201cWe also didn\u2019t want to wait for a \u2018yes\u2019 before making plans and also responding to the really urgent need to have this story out in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWatch the full conversation in the video above. <\/p>\n