{"id":141208,"date":"2025-08-13T02:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T02:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/141208\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T02:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T02:12:10","slug":"tiff-pulls-october-7-documentary-from-lineup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/141208\/","title":{"rendered":"TIFF Pulls October 7 Documentary From Lineup"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE: <\/strong>The Toronto<\/a> Film Festival has uninvited the documentary The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue by Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich from a spot in the festival\u2019s fall lineup.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue tells the story about retired Israel Defense Forces General Noam Tibon, who embarked on a heroic mission to save his family, including his two granddaughters, who were surrounded by Hamas terrorists on October 7th, 2023. Tibon also rescued survivors of the music festival massacre and help ed wounded Israeli soldiers on his journey to save his family. His story was originally covered by 60 Minutes in October 2023.<\/p>\n

\n\tA TIFF<\/a> spokesperson tells Deadline on Tuesday, \u201cThe invitation for the Canadian documentary film\u00a0The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue\u00a0was withdrawn by TIFF because general requirements for inclusion in the festival, and conditions that were requested when the film was initially invited, were not met, including legal clearance of all footage. The purpose of the requested conditions was to protect TIFF from legal implications and to allow TIFF to manage and mitigate anticipated and known risks around the screening of a film about highly sensitive subject matter, including potential threat of significant disruption.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs per our terms and conditions for participation in the festival, \u2018TIFF may disqualify from participation in the Festival any Film that TIFF determines in its sole and absolute discretion would not be in TIFF\u2019s best interest to include in the Festival.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filmmaking team behind The Road Between Us tells Deadline: \u201cWe are shocked and saddened that a venerable film festival has defied its mission and censored its own programming by refusing this film. Ultimately, film is an art form that stimulates debate from every perspective that can both entertain us and make us uncomfortable. A film festival lays out the feast and the audience decides what they will or won\u2019t see. We are not political filmmakers, nor are we activists; we are storytellers. We remain defiant, we will release the film, and we invite audiences, broadcasters, and streamers to make up their own mind, once they have seen it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSources tell us that TIFF pulled the movie due to potential risks of disruptive protests at this year\u2019s festival, which runs September 4-14. TIFF faced a similar situation last year with the antiwar documentary Russians at War<\/a>, which stirred Ukrainian diplomats and activists to urge the fest to cancel screenings, claiming it was Russian propaganda. Canada\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was also riled up over the docu. TIFF halted screenings on Russians at War, then showed the docu days following the festival with heavy security at showtimes.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the case of The Road Between Us, its filmmakers were under the impression the documentary was being announced in TIFF\u2019s doc lineup <\/a>on August 6, however, per fest insiders that wasn\u2019t the case because the movie hadn\u2019t met its requirements. The Road Between Us was invited to play at TIFF on July 14 under certain requirements.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat were those? <\/p>\n

\n\tThe festival suggested that the movie title be changed from its original title Out of Nowhere: The Ultimate Rescue. The filmmakers complied. <\/p>\n

\n\tFilmmakers were told they had to make editorial changes specifically identifying horrific footage that was livestreamed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, footage that had already been seen publicly. The festival claims it requested that the filmmakers not make changes, rather identify the source of the footage and confirmation of legal clearance. The Road Between Us team were asked and provided an errors and omissions insurance letter that added TIFF as the insured. Filmmakers were also asked to provide a legal reporting letter confirming clearance of the footage, as well as added security. We\u2019re told by the festival that the event was going to provide additional security given any potential risk from the film. <\/p>\n

\n\tOn August 6, TIFF\u2019s lawyer informed the producers that they wanted to see evidence of the indemnification, legal letter and insurance certificate, and screen the film for a third time on August 8 to verify that TIFF\u2019s required changes were made. On Monday, TIFF boss Cameron Bailey<\/a> called the producers of The Road Between Us and asked them to withdraw the film. We\u2019re told by all sources that the filmmakers refused.<\/p>\n

\n\tBailey officially uninvited The Road Between Us in an email to producers today.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe documentary is being distributed by Cineplex in Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: The Toronto Film Festival has uninvited the documentary The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue by Canadian…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":141209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[84195,171,53,64287,8790,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-141208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-cameron-bailey","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-tiff","12":"tag-toronto","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115019038272178592","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}