In ‘The Killing Roads,’ filmmaker Igal Hecht confronts the visceral pain of Oct. 7
The powerful new documentary, its release set to coincide with the massacre’s anniversary, focuses on the Hamas slaughter on the south’s main arteries. To combat deniers, it is available for free
TORONTO — Canadian-Israeli documentary filmmaker Igal Hecht didn’t witness firsthand the Hamas atrocities of last October 7 but the horrors of that fateful day have dominated much of his reality over the past year.
It’s the focus of his new film, “The Killing Roads,” which saw an unconventional release last week, just ahead of the first anniversary of the massacre, which saw 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, butchered with horrific brutality and 251 kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.
But instead of focusing primarily on the ravaged kibbutzim and Nova music festival targeted by Hamas, “The Killing Roads” concentrates on what happened on Route 232 and Highway 34 where marauding gunmen from Gaza mowed down 250 people in cold blood.
Hecht is making “The Killing Roads” available for free on social media and on a designated website to counter widespread denial of what Israel experienced on the worst day in its history.
For Hecht, it’s the most traumatic of the 52 films he’s directed in his career. Its soul-crushing content still torments him.
“By far, this was the hardest film I’ve ever made due to the emotional impact,” says Hecht during a recent interview with The Times of Israel in a Toronto café. “It took more out of me than my other films. Usually, I love making films. I love the process. I love being on location. Not this time. There was no joy in making this film whatsoever. I hated every moment. At every place we filmed, it was heartbreaking.”
If the nearly two-hour film was excruciating for Hecht to make, it’s extremely difficult to watch. As its title suggests, “The Killing Roads” is replete with death. It combines an exploration of the slaughter by Palestinian terrorists on thoroughfares in southern Israel on October 7 with gut-wrenching testimony of survivors, first responders and those who lost loved ones in the brutal ambushes. It takes viewers on a blood-soaked journey along the ill-fated roads, retracing the steps of the invaders and documenting their acts of carnage, starting at 6:30 a.m.
Hecht is no stranger to uncomfortable subjects, having previously made films on the Holocaust and Rwandan, Bangladeshi, Cambodian and Yazidi genocides.
“Those projects were harrowing, but this one is intensely personal,” says 47-year-old Hecht, who was born in Israel, where he has many relatives, friends and colleagues. “Every day on set of ‘The Killing Roads’ involved a new wave of grief.”
“It might sound dramatic, but my heart truly broke every single day,” he says. “There were moments when my cameraman, Lior Cohen, and I simply stood in silence, overwhelmed by the magnitude of what we were documenting. As we delved deeper into the stories, I found myself filled with a growing rage. Echoing in my mind constantly was, ‘How the fuck was this allowed to happen?’”
It’s hard not to think of that question watching the film, derived largely from three sources of mostly previously unseen raw material — 30 hours of content Hecht filmed in Israel last March; 50 hours of footage from United Hatzalah first responders and many chilling Hamas video recordings of their bloodletting.
Graphic footage figures prominently in ‘The Killing Roads,’ made only slightly less shocking by Hecht’s blurring of the faces of victims, out of respect for them and their families. He also uses material from security cameras and personal footage filmed on October 7 by some of the survivors he features as they were under attack. Adding to the film’s poignancy are interviews he conducted with survivors, victims’ families and first responders where the shootings occurred.
Born in Ashkelon, Hecht moved to Toronto with his family in 1988 when he was 11. His Ukrainian-born parents left Israel seeking a better life in Canada for themselves and their two sons. Since receiving a VHS camera as a bar mitzvah gift from his parents, he’s been passionate about filmmaking, for which he founded Chutzpa Productions Inc. in 1999. His documentaries and TV series, many filmed in Israel, have been shown on television and at film festivals in many countries, winning numerous awards.
Hecht has always followed Israeli news closely and, like most Jews, he remembers vividly when he first learned of the October 7 attack. It was 11:30 on a Friday night and he was watching a movie in his apartment in a Toronto suburb, home to many other Israeli-Canadians. Having the app on his phone that notifies people of incoming rocket attacks in Israel, he noticed it suddenly started sounding off in quick succession. Watching Israeli news, he soon realized this wasn’t a usual Hamas aerial assault on Israel.
“I stayed up the whole night,” recalls Hecht. “There was no way I was going to sleep. I went on Telegram, which is really where you get the news these days and where I have all of Hamas’s message boards. I started seeing they’re attacking Sderot, Netivot, and the kibbutzim. During those initial hours, you heard all sorts of misinformation. You didn’t know exactly what’s happening, and you’re just thinking, where the hell’s the army? In the morning, I eventually got a few hours’ sleep and then just kept watching for the next five days, completely disconnected from the world.”
Soon after, Hecht decided to make a film about October 7. Eventually, after watching more footage of the attacks, reading about how they unfolded and studying a map, he thought what happened on southern arteries including in the roadside bomb shelters would provide a compelling angle.
Hecht pitched the idea to Canadian broadcasters who together had shown 10 of his previous films. They showed little interest, and later declined when he sent them a deck and nine-minute demo reel, but he was undaunted.
“I made the decision I didn’t need them,” says Hecht. “What influenced me was the release of ‘Screams Before Silence’ [Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary about the sexual violence against women on October 7]. I loved that they released it for free on YouTube, now the world’s largest streaming platform.”
Hecht had already recognized YouTube and X offer greater accessibility and viewership than broadcasters and streamers.
“I told myself, if I release my film on YouTube, X, Vimeo and on a dedicated website, the reach could be in the millions,” he says. “It could really have an impact. Once I calmed down from the response from broadcasters, I decided to just go with the free release.”
Despite the financial challenges, Hecht was committed to the project.
“I figured I’d be able to handle the cost if I had to,” he says. “I ran a GoFundMe campaign, which didn’t go as well as I had hoped [raising only $14,000 CDN] but I said, that’s OK, I’m making money on other shows I’m doing for TV. I can do this.”
Hecht, whose technical versatility and resourcefulness allow him to make films on a tight budget, received support from Pino Halili, the film’s executive producer, who covered some of the post-production costs, while his regular collaborators worked at reduced rates.
In ‘The Killing Roads,’ unlike in most of his previous films, Hecht provides his own narration and appears several times on camera.
“In this film, I’m extremely angry about the subject matter and I couldn’t set that anger aside,” says Hecht. “I’m still angry. I don’t know when this anger will go away, if ever. I’m angry because of what’s happening in this country [Canada] to Jews, in my industry, to people like me who are not afraid to say they’re Zionists and pro-Israel. All of this surrounded the making of this film.”
He’s now anxious about what kind of audience “The Killing Roads” will attract.
“As a rebuke to the evil unleashed on October 7 and the antisemitic lies that try to justify or deny such barbarity, I hope the film will reach people far and wide,” says Hecht, who encourages organizations anywhere, Jewish and non-Jewish, to use it for free for public screenings.
“No country should be expected to endure the savagery Israel suffered that dark day, yet the world seems eager to forget.”
