In time for Oct. 7 anniversary, a new film documents Hamas’ attack on Israel music festival

DAVID BAUDER

Horror came with sunrise following an all-night rave near the Gaza border on Oct. 7, 2023, the Hamas attack presaged by rockets that some young people mistakenly thought were fireworks. A new documentary shows the attack unfold over the next hours in stomach-churning detail: Gunmen mowing down passengers in cars that try to escape. Hiding in a garbage dumpster, or a refrigerator, to avoid detection. Live grenades tossed into a bunker, then thrown out seconds before exploding. Terrified hostages carried away to an uncertain fate.

Veteran news producer Susan Zirinsky calls “We Will Dance Again” the most significant project she’s ever worked on, notable praise considering her “9/11” film is arguably the best video document of that day. How much it is seen, however, may depend as much on context as content. The film is now streaming on the Paramount+ service and debuted last weekend on Showtime, in advance of the attack’s one-year anniversary. Distributors acknowledge, however, that it has been a hard sell in markets across the world: many potential outlets and film festivals did not want to wade into a hot-button political issue with war in the Mideast grinding on.

A message at the film’s beginning acknowledges that the human cost of the Oct. 7 massacre and the war that followed in Gaza “has been catastrophic for both Israelis and Palestinians” and lists the death toll on both sides. “This film cannot tell everyone’s story,” it says.

The message does not appear, however, when “We Will Dance Again” is screened in Israel. “We are documenting a moment in history,” Zirinsky said. “This is not a political film. This happened.” The former CBS News president is now chief of See It Now Studios and, with colleague Terence Wrong, has made a specialty of filmed recountings of major events, like the “11 Minutes” series about the 2017 mass shooting at a country music concert in Las Vegas. With cameras in everyone’s pocket, there’s a rich trove of raw material to bring these stories to life.

She was keenly interested when she learned of Israeli director Yariv Mozer, a former Israeli soldier who grabbed a camera and was one of the first non-officials given access to the scene. The haunting pictures of the hellscape he found illuminate the film’s opening moments. What Mozer had already completed didn’t need a lot of work, she said.

Mozer weaves an intimate story of that morning through interviews with survivors and cellphone video many had saved. One of his executive producers also acquired material taken by Hamas fighters later killed. “She didn’t tell me how and I didn’t ask,” he said.

That access enabled the scene of the grenades tossed back and forth, almost a cartoonish sequence if the explosions didn’t illustrate the life-and-death consequences. The killings that day weren’t confined to the concert site. But Mozer quickly determined he wanted to concentrate his film on the people who were there. “They were beautiful, young, young in spirit,” he said. “Naive in a way.”

The film is graphic and obviously not easy to watch. Zirinsky and Wrong had arguments over how much could be shown; there are a handful of spots where the picture is blurred out, in some cases to avoid showing expressions on the faces of victims. Critic Jacqueline Cutler wrote in The Daily Beast: “There is no sugarcoating this. ‘We Will Dance Again’ is the most harrowing documentary I have ever seen.”

Although the film is being offered on a streaming service and premium cable network in the U.S., getting exposure in the rest of the world has not been easy. Distributors made a deal to show it on the BBC, on the condition that it not describe Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Several film festivals rejected “We Will Dance Again,” in part because they worried about political fallout, and the rushed effort to make it publicly available for the first anniversary meant some deadlines were missed, said Michael Schmidt, president of the Sipur, an Israel-based studio that has worked on the project.

Its only film festival appearance was in New Zealand, said Schmidt, who would not name the festivals that had rejected it. One European buyer expressed interest but said it needed to be approved by its board. That was the last he heard from them. Some interested in showing the film wanted changes to reflect a Palestinian point of view, or required that it be aired together with a Palestinian documentary, he said.

Streaming services, which unlike many cable television networks have a direct-to-consumer subscriber relationship, were particularly reluctant to get involved, Schmidt said. Again, he would not specify who rejected the film. The goal wasn’t to create a political controversy, but to document a moment in history. “We are in this for the long game,” he said.

The company has resisted outreach from Israeli groups, including one effort by the Israeli foreign ministry to show the film at the United Nations, Zirinsky said. The idea is to avoid any appearance that the work could be used as a propaganda film. Despite the complications involved, she said, “I am very happy that we stood up to do this.”

Toward the end of the film, one of the survivors says friends lost that day that “I’m hoping that wherever they are, they’re partying like crazy. And one day, we will, too.” Such a day seemed in the distant future for Eitan Halley, one of the survivors interviewed who attended a recent screening of the film in New York. He said he’s determined that the truth of what happened that day get out, particularly when conspiracy theories suggest it didn’t happen. He admitted to his emotional struggles, including survivor’s guilt. Zirinsky suggested keeping the memories alive serve an important purpose.

“It could be your mission,” she said. “It could be,” Halley said quietly. “It could be.”