Today we mark one year since the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, a day that we all know has marked Jewish history indelibly. The first TV shows about October 7 are slowly coming out in Israel, while dozens of short and featured length documentaries have aired in the past year about the attack, and it’s clear that Israeli TV and film, too, will be forever changed by this moment.
“Eretz Nehederet,” the Israeli SNL, has tried to become the nation’s comforter in chief. A four-episode mini-series “Red Dawn.” which recently started airing and will be distributed internationally by Fox, tells diverse stories of heroism from that day. Also currently airing is a season of the reality show “Mehubarim,” which gives Israeli celebrities video cameras to shoot their lives, this time following famous Israelis dealing with the aftermath of the attack, including the murder of their loved ones at the Nova party. The first scripted series made about October 7, a teen series titled “The Things That Got Lost,” aired in the country back in May. “Checkout,” the most popular Israeli sitcom, has already aired a funny episode hoping to comfort a grieving country.
Sadly these shows aren’t available in the U.S. yet, but there are still plenty of documentaries and series that will help you commemorate and reflect on what happened that terrible day last October, a day that still fills us with so many questions and so much uncertainty a year later.
“We Will Dance Again” (Paramount+)
The first documentary about October 7 to make it to a big streaming service, “We Will Dance Again” was created by acclaimed Israeli director Yariv Mozer, who wanted to tell the story of the October 7 attack on the Supernova Festival in Reim. Going minute-by-minute, it walks the viewer through that terrible day relying only on testimony of those who survived it — and some of those who didn’t. The documentary uses interviews with survivors and their families, but also footage and audio from the same day, some shot by the victims and some by Hamas body cameras and security cameras. Mozer was devastated when he had to go back to the studio after the murder of Hersh Goldberg-Polin and re-edit the documentary, which featured so much testimonies about the Israeli American hostage, including wishes for his return.
“Screams Before Silence” (YouTube)
The Sheryl Sandberg-produced movie about the sexual violence that took place on October 7 was shot in Israel over the course of five days. The former Facebook COO sat with survivors, including former hostage Moran Stella Yanai, and witnesses and first responders while walking through the sites where the attack happened, all in an attempt to counter the mass denial around the sexual violence of October 7.
“I walked through the eucalyptus trees with real life heroes who rescued hundreds of people and recovered the bodies of those we lost,” Sandberg wrote about the experience. “I spoke with police investigators and first responders who saw with their own eyes the murder and mutilation of innocent civilians. And I sat and cried with released hostages, listening to their harrowing stories of survival and how they found humanity and resilience in each other.”
If you want to see October 7 illuminated in the way that Israelis have over the last year, you need to watch this show from veteran Israeli journalist Ilana Dayan, which has been on the air for over three decades and which released a special season dedicated to the October 7 attacks and their aftermath, streaming now on the Israeli streaming platform Izzy.
“Uvda,” the Hebrew word for fact, was one of the first to take the people of Israel through the nitty-gritty of what happened that day that left everyone with so much anger and questions. With her team of sensitive interviewers, she unfurls the stories of heroism and great losses of October 7. One episode takes us into the home of 9-year-old former hostage Emily Hand; another tells the story of the Bibas family, still believed to be held captive by Hamas. The series also tells the story of Orthodox ambulance drivers that helped that day, and how Kibbutz Nir Am’s security coordinator helped rescue her community.
With beautiful animation by creators who worked on the likes of “Waltz with Bashir,” this series of interviews tries to take us through the unimaginable. Journalist Ben Shani, a veteran award-winning journalist who has worked on “Uvda,” talks to survivors of the October 7 attacks, including freed hostages and first responders on the scene, in intimate, one-on-one interviews. Moody animated art fills in the blanks of feelings and locations. The format of this series is striking, with Shani reading narration for the stories in front of the subjects, where you can see how fresh this day still is for all of them. Shani brings a sensitive and compassionate sensibility to the interviews, smiling and sometimes weeping along with the subjects.
Starring “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem” actress Swell Ariel Or, this movie may be set in the 1980s, but it takes place and was shot in Kissufim, a kibbutz that was hit on October 7, well before it became effectively a ghost town, still unsafe to return to. The film beautifully immortalizes the spirit of the kibbutz and shows how being Israeli means having to constantly be bracing for tragedy.
