October 7 Film briefly excluded from Toronto film festival wins People’s Choice Award

A film about an Israeli retired general’s mission to save his family from Hamas terrorists that was briefly excluded from the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) won the People’s Choice Award for best documentary on Sunday.

Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich's The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue follows Noam Tibon as he rescued his son Amir, daughter-in-law Miri and two grandchildren from kibbutz Nahal Oz after Hamas terrorists attacked on October 7. Along his journey, Tibon also helped others who were caught up in the attacks, including Bar and Lior Matsner who had been hiding at the roadside among a pile of leaves after surviving the Nova festival massacre.

While the film had been programmed by TIFF, the festival later uninvited it on August 11, giving the reason that “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”. Some of that footage of the massacre, taken from Hamas body cams, had already been made public by media outlets. The festival’s decision to remove the documentary was protested and by August 14, the film was selected once again.

Noam Tibon in The Road Between Us(TIFF)

The Times of Israel reported that CEO of TIFF Cameron Bailey denied claims that director Avrich was asked to secure rights to use actual Hamas body cam footage of the atrocities.