Berlinale-winning documentary about hostage family gets global sales deal

“Holding Liat,” an award-winning documentary about an Israeli-American family struggling for the release of their loved ones from Hamas captivity after October 7, was acquired by MetFilm Sales for worldwide sales.

The film, which won the best documentary feature award at the Berlinale film festival, shows the first months after teacher Liat Beinin Atzili and her husband, artist and mechanic Aviv Atzili, were taken hostage in the attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz, part of the wider Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assault on southern Israel in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

Much of the film focuses on Beinin Atzili’s older parents, American-born couple Yehuda and Chaya Beinin, who have lived in Israel since the early 1970s. They worked with the couple’s siblings and three children to get their daughter and son-in-law released.

Yehuda Beinin was contacted by the Kramer brothers, filmmakers Brandon and Lance Kramer, soon after the Hamas attack of October 7, distant cousins of the family whom they met when the brothers came to Israel on Birthright 20 years earlier, and with whom they’ve stayed in contact.

At the time, the Beinins were working closely with the other families of American-Israeli hostages, and were planning a mission to the US as a group on October 27, 2023.

“We thought another couple of weeks and this would all be over,” said Beinin. “Nobody thought we’d be in this for the long haul.”

Yehuda Beinin, father of former hostage Liat Beinin Atzili, with a family member in Washington, DC, during the filming of ‘Holding Liat’ about the family’s struggle to bring home Liat and Aviv Atzili from captivity, which won the Berlinale documentary award in March 2025 (Courtesy)

When the sibling filmmakers asked to join, Beinin figured they would create a low-key, personal project that he would then give to his daughter and son-in-law when they returned home from captivity.

“They took the idea and really ran with it,” said Beinin.

The film shows the complex sides of the struggle as Beinin, a longtime pro-peacenik, visits the US as part of that delegation of American-Israeli families of hostages.

As a committed liberal who has long been opposed to the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Beinin makes it clear that he didn’t want to be aligned with certain aspects of Israel, while his grandchildren are less concerned about the politics of it all and are focused primarily on their parents’ release.

“It’s a very strange master class on how politics works,” said Beinin.

Other members of the family are featured in the film, including Yehuda’s brother and Liat’s sister, Tal, both of whom live in Portland, Oregon, each offering their own opinions within the anguished situation of a hostage family.

Liat Beinin Atzili was released from captivity in November 2023, during the initial pause in fighting, when 105 Israeli hostages were freed. Her husband, Aviv Atzili, was discovered to have been killed on October 7.

Aviv and Liat Beinin Atzili were believed taken hostage in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023. Liat was freed by Hamas from Gaza on November 29, 2023. The next day, the kibbutz said Aviv had in fact been killed during the Hamas onslaught. (Courtesy)

Now, more than a year later, the family is doing a little better, said Beinin, although the body of Aviv Atzili, Beinin’s son-in-law, is still held captive in Gaza.

“Liat has said she doesn’t want a single hair on any Israeli soldier’s head harmed to bring Aviv home,” said Beinin. “And Aviv’s brother says if it will take twenty years to bring his body home, then it will take 20 years.”

It’s clear to Beinin that if Israel wants the remaining 59 hostages released, then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has to go,” he said. “The hostage families found themselves in a very difficult situation. There won’t be any resolution if he’s still prime minister.”

And as Beinin pointed out, both in the film and in interviews, he sometimes angers people, including his own grandchildren, when he brings in politics, and has tried to rein himself in.

Following its win in Berlin, the film about the family’s trauma now qualifies for consideration at the 2026 Oscars for Best Documentary Feature.

Last year’s Berlinale documentary feature winner, “No Other Land,” just won the Oscar in the same category.

Members of the Beinin-Atzilis featured in ‘Holding Liat,’ the documentary about a family in the October 7, 2023 aftermath that won Best Documentary Feature at the Berlinale in March 2025 (Courtesy)

“It was a total out-of-body experience for me,” said Beinin. “I’m really just beginning to grasp where this could go.”

Zak Brilliant, who is head of sales and distribution at MetFilm, called “Holding Liat” a “searing and vital account of an incredibly complex and tragic situation, but more than anything, it’s a remarkable testament to the power of holding space for peace amid violence.”

“Holding Liat” is a Protozoa and Meridian Hill Pictures production directed by Brandon Kramer and produced by Lance Kramer, Darren Aronofsky, Ari Handel, Yoni Brook, and Justin A. Gonçalves.

Brandon Kramer, Lance Kramer, the brothers who made ‘Holding Liat’ about the Beinin-Atzili family struggle to bring their parents home from captivity, which won the Berlinale documentary award in March 2025 (Courtesy)

“We had a unique access point to create a historical record of this moment through the frame of one family,” said director Brandon Kramer in a Variety interview. “Where the story led us was a profound place we never could have imagined from the onset.”