Inside the ‘Hard Battle' of Bringing ‘The Children of October 7' Doc to Paramount+

Yahoo

23-04-2025

For Shari Redstone, the president of National Amusements and the chairwoman of Paramount Global, 'The Children of October 7' is more than just another documentary airing within her media empire. It's part of a larger calling.
'I've been fighting racism and antisemitism for a long time, but after Oct. 7, it became my life,' Redstone said during a paneled discussion for the doc on Tuesday night. 'It became the most important thing that I can do with my time — that I can teach my children, that I can bring people together to not just watch this movie but to share this with people they know, to tell the truth, to tell the stories.'
Hosted at the The Paley Center for Media, the premiere for the Paramount+ documentary saw several notable celebrities, including Jason Isaacs and his wife Emma Hewitt, singer Gloria Gaynor, producer Nancy Spielberg, 'My Unorthodox Life' star Miriam Haart, UJA-Federation CEO Eric Goldstein, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt and CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig. Noa Argamani, who was kidnapped by Hamas during the Re'im music festival massacre, was also in attendance.
'The Children of October 7' is simply that. It is a collection of testimonies from children who were impacted by the Hamas-led attack on Israel that took place on Oct. 7, 2023. The ages of the subjects range greatly from Yael Idan, who was only seven years old when her sister Maayan Idan was murdered by Hamas terrorists, to Rotem Matias, who was 16 when he hid from terrorists under his mother's body. Yet the sheer horror each of these children faced is disturbingly the same. Guided by social media activist Montana Tucker, the documentary gives these children a platform to tell their harrowing stories in their own words.
The idea for 'The Children of October 7' came from A Town Shorts, director Asaf Becker and Kastina Communications, who approached Tucker about leading the project. After the doc was finished, the team wanted it to reach the biggest platform possible. That's where CBS vice president of communications Andrea Ballas came in. She and Tucker met at an event, and the VP quickly became a cheerleader for the project. That's how it eventually landed in Redstone's lap.
Redstone emphasized that it was important to her that the documentary aired on Paramount+ given the platform's younger audience base. During a time when many in Hollywood are adverse to projects about the Oct. 7 attacks due to the hot button nature of the subject matter, Redstone was adamant about finding a place for the film in her media empire. Both Redstone and Tucker emphasized that the movie is 'not political.'
'My dad once said 'Content is king.' And what I've always said is content can lead to conversations that can lead to change. One of the most powerful forms of content — specifically, what we just saw — is film, is just watching something together,' Redstone said. 'This was easy. It might have been a hard battle, but it was easy to fight for.'
Both Redstone and Tucker emphasized that the larger point of this project is to remember the stories of these victims and fight for these children. 'You're getting it told by the children. The Holocaust survivors, we didn't get any survivors as children sharing their stories. You got them later on in life,' Tucker said during Tuesday night's panel. 'This is still currently happening. Everything in this film is still currently happening.'
Redstone also sees the documentary as part of a larger battle against misinformation. 'I spent some time with the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], and one of the things that they're really concerned about is AI,' she said. 'They're so afraid that as AI evolves, years from now the content is going to come from the web and the content is going to come from all these stories that are false … That's one of the reasons why this film is so important, why the testimonials are so important.'
Ultimately, the hope is that this film will encourage more people to fight against antisemitism and terrorism. 'When you leave here tonight, you need to have those conversations, and you need to fight to create the world that we want for our grandchildren,' Redstone said.
'The Children of October 7' is currently available to stream on Paramount+. It will air Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on MTV.
The post Inside the 'Hard Battle' of Bringing 'The Children of October 7' Doc to Paramount+ appeared first on TheWrap.