Oh Canada! The Toronto Film Festival’s Attempt to Pull 10/7 Doc

A film festival exists to help people see things with clarity. Often, they are difficult things. That’s why the Toronto International Film Festival’s August 13 initial decision to withdraw The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue—a documentary about October 7—lands like a cold slap. TIFF said its conditions weren’t met, citing legal clearance for all footage (including material Hamas livestreamed) and the risk of “significant disruption.” Wait—were they actually concerned they didn’t have a signed release from Hamas for the GoPro footage of the massacre? The grotesque absurdity of that requirement speaks for itself.

The next day, amid mounting blowback, CEO Cameron Bailey apologized “for any pain,” denied censorship, and said he’d work with the filmmakers so the movie could still screen this year. Both facts belong in the same sentence: TIFF intended to pull the film; the decision is now being walked back under pressure.

The surface logic—bureaucratic fastidiousness worthy of Eichmann—masks the real problem: a cultural gatekeeper turning a moral record into a licensing puzzle. We are talking about evidence produced by the perpetrators themselves. If your rules make a terror group’s livestream into a de-facto veto on documentation of its crimes, your rules aren’t just wrong—they suggest something darker.

The backlash that forced this reversal came from people, the majority Jewish, with names and reputations who refused to swallow it. The filmmakers called the withdrawal censorship and vowed to release the film regardless. Noam Tibon, the retired Israeli general at the center of the story, publicly rejected the absurdity of needing “permission” from Hamas to show Hamas’s crimes. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs blasted the move and rallied supporters; the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center demanded reinstatement. Donors TIFF depends on—Agi Mandel, whose family donated the TIFF Lightbox land, and former senator Linda Frum and developer Howard Sokolowski—spoke out publicly, with Mandel calling the decision “cowardly self-censorship” and vowing not to attend. Canadian documentarian Igal Hecht warned against surrendering programming to a heckler’s veto and urged pressure on sponsors. That concrete, public push is what moved TIFF from “withdrawn” to “we’ll work to screen it.”

We all know how decisions like this get made. In a room—or on a Zoom—someone from programming insists the film is urgent and solid; legal points at un-cleared Hamas clips; security predicts protests; comms recites “safety” and “inclusion.” No one disputes the massacre. No one alleges fabrication. Yet the group chooses a path that betrays the very purpose of a film festival: withdraw now, bury it in procedural bullsh*t, hope the storm passes. This time, the storm grew. Only then did the institution rediscover its purpose.

None of this is new. The arts world loves to market itself as boundlessly open—“make space for difficult work, trust audiences with hard truths.” Yet when the subject is Jewish grief or the Jewish state, that openness collapses. I’ve seen it not just as an observer but as a performer on the receiving end. For many, the “arts” community implies justice, moral certainty, and integrity. I’ve long been mistrustful of this promise. And today the falseness is glaring. Just last month, two Jewish comedians at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival had their shows abruptly canceled—one after threats and antisemitic graffiti, another over social media posts critical of Hamas—only to be reinstated after outrage. In New York, Israeli-born artist Zoya Cherkassky’s talk at the Jewish Museum was disrupted by activists denouncing her October 7 drawings as “imperial propaganda,” forcing the event into chaos. And last year, I had a show nearly canceled at the last minute after threats of a protest and venue staff saying they wouldn’t work with “a Zionist” on the stage. Only last-minute negotiations by my agent saved it.

The pattern is clear: across comedy, visual art, music, publishing, and now film, when the subject is Jewish identity or the Jewish state, too many in the arts world trade principle for appeasement. TIFF is only the latest, loudest example. I’m not interested in theatrical courage. I’m interested in authentic courage. Festivals already have the tools: editorial vetting, fair-dealing analysis, professional liability insurance, real security plans. Use them evenly. Don’t invent bespoke hurdles for one community’s stories—especially Jewish ones. Don’t let the possibility of pushback become policy. And for the sake of moral sanity, don’t beg the perpetrators of a mass pogrom for a hall pass.

Two truths stand side by side: TIFF did intend to pull this film, and TIFF is now “working” to include it—because people who care about memory and integrity made that intention untenable.

The lesson isn’t complicated. Do your duty to inform audiences without outsourcing your conscience to the loudest threat. If a festival cannot bear to show what happened on October 7, it has lost its credibility.