The ABCs of Book Banning<\/a>, which she directed with Trish Adlesic and Nazenet Habtezghi. The filmmaker and producer, who grew up in a secular Jewish family, says Children No More \u201cbasically says to people, not all Jews think the same thing and they\u2019re not all warriors and they\u2019re not all out there to kill. And some of them do want to hope that there could be a two-state [solution in Israel]. Not everybody wants to take over Gaza and build a Trump hotel. So, I think it was interesting politically in its very simple way, in terms of what it said about Jews and where they are\u2026 For me, it was an education to learn that there were so many Israelis in Israel who were opposed to this war.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"'Children](\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-deadline-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMedalia Productions\/Salty Features\/Full Story Films<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the film, organizers of the silent demonstrations describe their motivations and approach. \u201cThe vigil is not intended to provoke. It\u2019s so people take it in and take it home with them,\u201d one organizer explains. \u201cHow can you argue in the face of a boy or a girl who was murdered? How can you argue with that? That\u2019s why we avoid confrontations and lead people away.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe organizer continues, \u201cThe only way to make change is for people to look inward and understand that something very, very dark is going on. And it goes against all the principles of humanity, and Judaism. Our goal is to awaken something inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAs the organizers make clear, the vigils in no way negate the tragedy of October 7, when more than 1,200 Israelis were killed in the terror attack by Hamas, and more than 250 civilians were kidnapped and spirited off to captivity in Gaza. Two things can be true, that October 7 was an outrage and that the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians is a tragedy, and yet some Israelis who witness the demonstrations appear unwilling to accept that notion. In the documentary, demonstrators receive abuse from some passersby who demand to know why they aren\u2019t protesting for the release of hostages \u2014 or who openly cheer the razing of Gaza.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tPeople, holding portraits of Palestinian children killed during Israeli attacks on Gaza, gather for silent protest in Tel Aviv, Israel on December 6, 2025.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMostafa Alkharouf\/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n\tOne organizer observes, \u201cThis [silent demonstration] does not come at the expense of the hostages\u2019 families or the children who were murdered here. One murder does not justify another, and our injustice is not a weapon that can be used to wipe out entire families.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDespite Nevins\u2019 stature as one of the most important figures in the history of American documentary filmmaking, no U.S. distributor would take Children No More: \u2018Were and Are Gone.\u2019 That includes HBO, which Nevins built into a nonfiction film powerhouse over the course of a generation.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt was very obvious what this film was. And I sent it out a lot without even asking \u2014 just, \u2018Interested? (question mark)\u2019 \u2014 because these are all people I know and I bought with and bought from. But there was no response,\u201d Nevins says. \u201cIt was a very, very, very difficult film to be involved with. You didn\u2019t see any network pick it up, did you? You didn\u2019t see any big screenings, did you? Except among filmmakers. We couldn\u2019t get it into a lot of places to be seen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tNevins comments, \u201cIt was like they didn\u2019t want to anger anybody. This film angers people. I once had a well-known man who hung up on me and said, \u2018How dare I? What kind of a Jew was I?\u2019 And so, it\u2019s a troublesome film. It\u2019s sweet and kind and dear and extremely well-made, but it\u2019s trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tShe adds, \u201cThere are a lot of right-wing Jews in this country who are very for taking over Gaza, and a lot of them are in power, and it\u2019s very difficult to get a showing for a film like this. There\u2019s a lot of opposition to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tDemonstrators in Habima Square hold photos of Palestinian children who lost their lives in Gaza, September 30, 2025, in Tel Aviv, Israel.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMostafa Alkharouf\/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n\tNevins draws a comparison between the demonstrations shown in Children No More and the mass protests in Minneapolis over ICE tactics that succeeded in convincing the Trump administration to reduce its occupation of the city.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSomehow with all the injustices, if you fight hard enough, you\u2019re still in a democracy and you can get a few victories. You couldn\u2019t do this in Russia. You couldn\u2019t do this in China,\u201d she says. \u201cIsrael is a democracy, and America, for better or worse, is a democracy\u2026 [In Tel Aviv], they were protected by the police \u2014 those young people going out with the children and the posters. The police didn\u2019t particularly like them, but they gave them protection.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tShe adds, \u201cI think occasionally you see the power of one or the power of a group to change things. And I guess that\u2019s the only hope that\u2019s left.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The men and women hold signs, but do not speak. Words in Hebrew on their placards \u2014 each…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":620498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[142411,265577,171,265578,53,265579,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-620497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-awardsdoc","tag-children-no-more-were-and-are-gone","tag-entertainment","tag-hilla-medalia","tag-movies","tag-sheila-nevins","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116144049299894890","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620497","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=620497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}