How do you even begin writing, directing and acting in episodes like these?<\/p>\n
Givon: \u201cPersonally, I had no desire to touch that day. I was invited to take part in several October 7-related projects and kept asking why. What could I possibly add? We\u2019re still in the middle of the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the new season of Fauda, I knew they were rethinking everything after October 7 and that there would be two episodes dealing directly with the attack. Again, the question was why. But we realized it was important to the characters\u2019 story arcs. I was also very interested in portraying the aftermath, the trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n
Avi Issacharoff. ‘These episodes take us back to 3 a.m. on October 7, when the security establishment began to realize something was wrong’ <\/p>\n (Photo: Ilya Melnikov)<\/p>\n Yaakov Zada Daniel: \u201cI loved the idea of seeing it through Fauda\u2019s eyes. It takes the story somewhere different because these are characters the audience already knows. The connection is different. It\u2019s not a documentary.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m grateful to Fauda for giving me a chance to release everything I\u2019d been carrying inside. I wasn\u2019t in the fighting. I wasn\u2019t one of the soldiers on the ground. I felt I hadn\u2019t contributed anything during the most significant event in Israel\u2019s history, and that sent me into a deep depression. That feeling of helplessness \u2014 how could I just be sitting at home?\u201d<\/p>\n Issacharoff said the fifth season had already been in development before October 7.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had started writing the season before October 7, but then everything changed,\u201d he said. \u201cNothing we had was relevant anymore. There was a new reality, a completely different world. We threw everything out and started over. We realized there was a story that was burning inside all of us.<\/p>\n \u201cOmri Shenhar, the head writer for Season 5, suggested making a standalone episode that showed what happened to our characters that day. We saw it as a mission. Audiences in 190 countries will watch characters they\u2019ve spent four and a half seasons with experience the catastrophe, the massacre, this horrific event. It\u2019s a punch to the gut.<\/p>\n Yaakov Zada Daniel. ‘I went to Kfar Aza and the Nova site because I wanted this event to get into my blood, into my soul’ <\/p>\n (Photo: Alex Kolmoisky)<\/p>\n \u201cEven in India or Argentina, viewers can connect to these characters and understand what happened here. It won\u2019t matter what disaster deniers, at home or abroad, have to say. There was a colossal failure, a catastrophe, a massacre \u2014 all at once. We felt we had to tell this story, and the idea was to let viewers experience it through the eyes of Fauda\u2019s characters.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOctober 7 is so extraordinary that it couldn\u2019t simply become part of the season\u2019s regular plot.\u201d<\/p>\n Before I watched the episode, you warned me it would be difficult \u2014 and it was. How did you determine where the boundaries were? How graphic could you be, and where did you stop?<\/p>\n Givon: \u201cWe wrestled with those questions because it\u2019s such a sensitive subject. You don\u2019t want to exploit the horror or make a snuff film, but you also don\u2019t want to understate it. The real horror can\u2019t even be depicted. The challenge was finding ways to acknowledge that these things happened \u2014 including rape \u2014 without actually showing them. There was a massacre of young people, so maybe we show two frames and the audience understands what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n Zada Daniel: \u201cI went to Kfar Aza and the Nova site because I wanted this event to get into my blood, into my soul. I wanted firsthand testimony, and I think Episodes 7 and 8 are a form of firsthand testimony. They make this event part of us. We\u2019ll be able to tell our grandchildren about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Why make these episodes stand alone?<\/p>\n Issacharoff: \u201cOctober 7 is such a singular, unprecedented event that you can\u2019t simply weave it into the season\u2019s ongoing storyline. It stands apart. It\u2019s one long flashback, essentially a film documenting the hardest day in Israel\u2019s history and in Jewish history since the Holocaust.<\/p>\n From”Fauda, Season 5 <\/p>\n (Photo: Elia Spinopoulos, courtesy of yes)<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to approach it with reverence. My hands were shaking. You ask yourself whether you\u2019re being cynical, whether you\u2019re using the blood of the people who were murdered.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the end, I think we answered that clearly: No. Quite the opposite. As an Israeli, as a Jew, as someone who lives here and cares about this country and has the ability to tell a story to the world, it\u2019s not a privilege. It\u2019s an obligation. You\u2019re like a prayer leader standing before a congregation, giving voice to the cry of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople abroad don\u2019t understand. Right now, they see Israel as \u2018the bad guys.\u2019 Our enemies have succeeded in erasing and blurring reality, and unfortunately some people here are trying to blur it for other reasons. This is much bigger than us or than Fauda. We\u2019re leaving behind a legacy for years to come, certainly for Jews but not only for them.\u201d<\/p>\n For years, Fauda has portrayed the complexity of the conflict and given depth to its Palestinian militant characters. The atrocities committed by the Nukhba terrorists and others who invaded Israel on October 7 challenged the creators in a new way.<\/p>\n For years, Fauda has portrayed the complexity of the conflict and given depth to its Palestinian militant characters <\/p>\n (Photo: Elia Spinopoulos, courtesy of yes)<\/p>\n \u201cPeople asked whether Fauda would still try to present both sides,\u201d Issacharoff said. \u201cBut this event is different. Here, you want to tell the story from an Israeli perspective. You want to show the monsters \u2014 some of whom, as we learned from released hostages, were doctors and journalists. It\u2019s insane.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m referring to the female soldiers who were held in the apartment of an Al Jazeera journalist. 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