The Road Between Us

Source: Noam Tibon

The Road Between Us

The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, Barry Avrich’s documentary about a retired Israeli general’s mission to save his family during the October 7 2023 Hamas attacks that has become a lingering controversy for Toronto International Film festival (TIFF), is to get a US release.

The feature premiered in Toronto on Wednesday night, where it drew protests outside Roy Thomson Hall before the screening.

Forston Consulting will distribute in the US and previously announced Cineplex Pictures will release in Canada.

All in all, the North American release on October 3 will go out on more than 125 prints in the top 20 markets, among them New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco, Chicago, Vancouver, Montreal, and West Palm Beach.

The release is being supported by social-issue organisation The Impact Series.

The Road Between Us was initially withdrawn by TIFF, ostensibly over concerns relating to rights clearances involving footage from Hamas body cameras.

However that is now widely understood not to have been the case. Avrich said during an on-stage conversation in TIFF last week that as far as he knew when he was making the film, Hamas does not have a licencing division.

What has emerged from conversations with sources in Toronto is that the film sparked internal opposition within TIFF over its inclusion in the festival in light of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. The film’s subject Noam Tibon is a former Israel Defense Forces general.

After much back and forth between TIFF and Avrich, the film was reinstated prior to the festival. The filmmaker said on stage last week that festival CEO Cameron Bailey told him that it had been a “mistake” to withdraw the film. 

 

Topics