Jeers for Israel and a top award for a doc about hostages at Berlin film festival

BERLIN (JTA) — A powerful film about an Israeli family’s ordeal since the Hamas terror onslaught of October 7, 2023, has won the top documentary prize at this year’s Berlinale film festival, one year after a film about West Bank Palestinians took home the same award.

“Holding Liat,” a US production that held its world premiere here on February 16, follows the family of Liat Beinin Atzili after Hamas terrorists abducted her from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Her husband, Aviv, was killed. Liat returned home in the first hostage deal in November 2023.

The prize-winning documentary, by American director Brandon Kramer, is one of two films dealing with October 7 that had their world premieres at the festival. The other, “Letter to David,” from Israeli director Tom Shoval, brings viewers close to the Cunio family, several of whose members — including brothers David and Ariel Cunio — also were abducted from Nir Oz. The film was, by Shoval’s choice, not in competition for an award.

The prize for “Holding Liat,” announced February 22, and displays of solidarity for hostages by the festival leadership and some celebrities, contrasted with last year’s Berlinale, where public vilification of Israel went virtually unanswered, critics say.

But while the new festival director, Tricia Tuttle, said she tried to get protests under control this year, warning participants about which statements might get them into trouble, it turned out to be difficult to keep the lid on.

Scottish actor Tilda Swinton, winner of this year’s Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement, used her award ceremony to condemn — without naming Israel — the “entitled domination and the astonishing savagery of spite, state-perpetrated and internationally enabled mass murder.”

And Hong Kong director Jun Li, whose film had nothing to do with Israel, chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — a phrase that is against the law here in some circumstances — from the stage. Following complaints, police have launched an investigation.

Tuttle said the Berlinale regretted what had happened. “We had indicated to our guests which political statements were particularly sensitive, and which were even likely to be criminal,” she said.

Podcaster Jenny Havemann, an Israeli-German entrepreneur who co-organized a vigil at the festival for Israeli hostages, said the German critics of Israel were antisemitic.

“This double standard is just so unbearable,” said Havemann after the festival. “If someone said a Nazi slogan in my event, I would be outraged and shocked.”

The Berlinale festival is known to be political. Last year’s winning documentary, “No Other Land,” by an Israeli-Palestinian team, skewered Israel for its treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank. Audience members chanted anti-Israel slogans at screenings. While the filmmakers “spoke about human rights violations apparently done by Israel,” no one mentioned the violence and kidnappings of Israelis only five months earlier, Havemann said.

This year, hostage family members urged festival organizers to publicly mention David Cunio, who, in addition to being profiled in “Letter to David,” had co-starred with his identical twin brother Eitan in Shoval’s fictional film “Youth,” screened at the Berlinale in 2013. David and his youngest brother Ariel were kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 invasion, and just last week his family were shown evidence suggesting David is still alive, according to reports. David’s wife Sharon and their twin daughters were released in the November 2023 ceasefire.

Eitan was not abducted and has been a vocal advocate for his brothers’ release.

On opening night, Berlinale director Tuttle and several prominent actors, human rights activists and others gathered on the red carpet in front of the Berlinale Palast theater and demonstrated for the release of the Cunios. The image was widely shared.

Eitan and other members of the Cunio family did not come to the festival, because they were hoping to get news about Ariel and David from the hostages that were going to be released, Shoval told the JTA.

“The festival apologized a few times for not showing more empathy with the hostages,” he said. “I felt the festival was very welcoming and showed empathy. My experience there felt like an embrace both from the festival and from the people.”

“Holding Liat” also won a prize in the “Forum” category, for “unconventional” contemporary international cinema productions. In the film, Liat’s father, Yehuda Beinin, fights for his daughter’s release without bending from his pacifist political stance. His family describes him as the unemotional one, but eventually he breaks down when stoicism is no longer needed. Like an undammed river, he takes the viewer with him.

His wife Chaya is, by contrast, pure empathy. She says she would feel it in her own body if her daughter were physically hurt.

That sense of physical connection also comes through in “Letter to David,” which includes footage shot in 2013 for “Youth.”

Shoval includes a clip from a 2013 screen test with the Cunio twins, in which “they said they have some telepathy between them, that they know exactly what the other one is thinking at any moment,” Shoval told JTA in a Zoom interview.

“Of course, this connection is very vivid, visually in the film, but also you can see it on Eitan, on his face. You can actually see what it is to be without your other half.”

Recently, Eitan told Shoval he “didn’t want to feel that… As long as I don’t feel anything, I know that he’s all right.”

In one of the film’s more startling moments, Shiri and Yarden Bibas and other residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz — many of whom, including Shiri Bibas and her two children, are now confirmed dead — flit across the screen like apparitions. The footage, mostly taken by David Cunio back in 2012 or 2013, had lain in a box at the production company untouched, Shoval said.

“I found this box, and I opened it and there it was: this treasure,” said Shoval. “It’s a shock to see [Shiri Bibas] and all the others. But there is something so innocent, so free and with a bright future — all of them youthful, having fun, walking in the kibbutz that they love and grew up in — that feels like this is the way to see them.”

“Life and cinema are like David and Eitan,” he added. “They are twin brothers, and they can’t be disconnected. I want and hope that David and Ariel will come back as soon as possible, and that life and cinema could really be together as they should be.”