Toronto Film Fest Explodes in Flag-Waving Chaos Over Oct. 7 Doc—Who’s Really Fighting Here, The Audience or the Screen?
Added on September 10, 2025 inMovie News Cards
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So picture this: at the Toronto Film Festival—yes, TIFF, the glitzy, glam-packed event where stars usually sparkle and pose—a very different kind of drama played out. Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters, flags waving and chants flying, faced off right outside Roy Thomson Hall before the premiere of The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, a documentary centered on a retired Israeli general’s harrowing mission to save his family during the tragic events of October 7, 2023. Now, wouldn’t you know it, with the Sun and Mars stirring up a fiery mix of confrontation and courage in the stars, tensions on the ground were anything but subtle—imagine 100 cops on foot, horseback, and bikes trying to keep the peace while megaphones battled it out louder than your average Sirius XM showdown. And here’s the kicker: amid lines of metal barricades and rigorous security, it wasn’t just a film premiere, but a clashing stage of conflicting narratives, raw emotions, and historical wounds that seemed as tangled as a Mercury retrograde gone wild. So what does it mean when art meets angst and old wounds clash with new stories? Buckle up—it’s a potent cocktail of perspective and passion. LEARN MORE
Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters, chanting and holdings signs and flags, faced off on Wednesday at the Toronto Film Festival before a world premiere for the Oct. 7 documentary The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue kicked off at Roy Thomson Hall.
Around 100 Toronto police officers, on foot, bicycles and horseback, attempted to corral the opposing protesters on Simcoe Street as each side attempted to shout down one another with sound systems and megaphones over the film about a retired Israeli general on a mission to save his family on Oct. 7, 2023.
Tension and enmity between the opposing activists quickly rose with only metal barricades and lines of police officers keeping keeping both sides apart. Closer to Roy Thomson Hall, film-goers with tickets to the Canadian doc faced a long wait as they passed through metal detectors and had their bags searched before getting into the high profile TIFF venue.
An organizer of the pro-Palestine protest against the TIFF world premiere told The Hollywood Reporter they opposed what they regarded as Israeli propaganda with director Barry Avrich’s documentary. “This protest is here to help educate people to what’s happening and to clarify the misinformation and the Israeli propaganda,” Anas, as the organizer identified himself, argued.
Winston Siegel, a pro-Israeli counter-protester, defended the Canadian documentary as it had a controversial world premiere at TIFF. “It’s a very legitimate story of a man trying to save his family under horrendous circumstances. That’s the story they want to represent as propaganda,” Siegel told THR.
The Canadian documentary centers on retired Israeli general Noam Tibon rescuing his family, including his son, from Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, when they invaded kibbutz Nahal Oz. TIFF organizers sparked opposition with an earlier decision not to screen the film at its 2025 edition after issuing an invitation to the filmmaker.
After an uproar from the Toronto Jewish community, Toronto reached an agreement with Avrich over security and footage clearance concerns to allow the reinstatement of the film in the official lineup. The result on Wednesday was the loud, yet peaceful protest and counter-protest that TIFF organizers had looked to avoid as colliding supporters of Palestinians and Israelis looked to flood the zone outside Roy Thomson Hall.
Meir Weinstein, founder of Israel Now and an organizer of the counter-protest by Israeli supporters, said opposing pro-Palestinian protesters were out to “whitewash” the actions of Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. “They want to say, ‘no, no. Hamas never did that. We’re innocent, sweet people. But they hate Jews. They want Israel totally destroyed, and that’s why they’re here,” Weinstein told THR.
On the other side of the barricades outside Roy Thomson Hall, Tarek Haj Ebrahim, another pro-Palestine protester, reiterated that the Canadian documentary was part of Israel’s propaganda campaign. “The whole movie is fake and false information. We’ve been in this conflict for 100 years. We know how they flip facts, how they falsify history,” Ebrahim insisted.
Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, killed around 1,200 Israelis, including civilians and Israel Defence Force soldiers. That was followed by the Israeli-Gaza war, which to date has claimed the lives of around 64,000 Palestinians, including ordinary Gazans, according to the local health authority.
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