The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, Barry Avrich’s documentary about a retired Israeli general’s mission to save his family during the October 7 2023 Hamas attacks that has become a lingering controversy for Toronto International Film festival (TIFF), is to get a US release.
The feature premiered in Toronto on Wednesday night, where it drew protests outside Roy Thomson Hall before the screening. Last weekend (September 7) pro-Palestinian demonstrators held protests outside TIFF Lightbox in a larger event, calling for an end to the war in Gaza.
Forston Consulting will distribute The Road Between Us in the US and the previously announced Cineplex Pictures will release the film in Canada.
All in all, the North American release on October 3 will go out on more than 125 prints in the top 20 markets, among them New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco, Chicago, Vancouver, Montreal, and West Palm Beach.
The release is being supported by social-issue organisation The Impact Series.
The Road Between Us was initially withdrawn by TIFF, ostensibly over concerns relating to rights clearances involving footage from Hamas body cameras.
However that is now widely understood not to have been the case. Avrich said during an on-stage conversation in TIFF last week that as far as he knew when he was making the film, Hamas does not have a licencing division.
What has emerged from conversations with sources in Toronto is that the film sparked internal opposition within TIFF over its inclusion in the festival in light of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. The film’s subject Noam Tibon is a former Israel Defense Forces general.
After much back and forth between TIFF and Avrich, the film was reinstated prior to the festival. The filmmaker said on stage last week that festival CEO Cameron Bailey told him that it had been a “mistake” to withdraw the film.
Credit:https://www.screendaily
