Latest news with #ALettertoDavid
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Israeli director's 'Letter to David' film about hostage seeks to capture person behind the horror
By Hanna Rantala BERLIN (Reuters) - For Tom Shoval, making the film "A Letter to David" was a way to ensure that his friend David Cunio was not just a face on a kidnapped poster after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, during which over 250 hostages were taken to Gaza by militants. The material coming in the day of the attack, which left at least 1,200 people dead, was "uncensored, unfiltered, with no dignity, no way to look at perspective and to understand something - just horror, horror, horror," Shoval told Reuters. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. It was "this blast of images, of carnage and violence, graphic violence, that almost makes you blind," he said. "You can't really see the person. You just see the horror." In the film, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on Friday, Shoval wanted to show that Cunio, who remains a hostage, was someone with motivations, dreams and nightmares. "I wanted to show that and release the person from this horror that was blinding us all," he said. What resulted was "A Letter to David," Shoval's deeply personal cinematic message to Cunio, who starred along with his twin brother in the director's first feature, 2013's "Youth." The film uses footage from "Youth" along with home video shot by the Cunios during the making of that film. That is contrasted against footage shot by Shoval in the Cunios' kibbutz in the weeks and months after the attack, showing how the tight-knit community was changed by it. "I felt that I have to talk to him somehow," said Shoval. "I'm a filmmaker and this is the only way I can approach it." In the intimate home video footage, the Cunio twins film their day-to-day lives at Kibbutz Nir Oz: wandering around an orange grove, pulling pranks from a rooftop, flirting with girls. "Watching that old footage, it was chilling," Shoval said. 'HE WILL COME BACK' The film, said Shoval, was a way to mourn the end of an era, but he does not mourn for David. "For me he's alive and he will come back. And the film is in a way a cry of hope for that," he said. Shoval hopes that seeing the film will let others get to know David and raise awareness of the hostages' hard conditions. "It's a matter of life and death," he said. The ups and downs in hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas have been "a roller coaster," said Shoval, but he does not want the fact that there are still hostages to feel normal. Palestinian militant groups have said that they will release three hostages seized from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Saturday, though Cunio was not among them. Hamas had earlier threatened not to proceed with the release of more hostages after it accused Israel of violating the terms of the ceasefire by blocking aid from entering Gaza. "It's worse that we will get used to the fact that there are hostages there and just live our lives," Shoval said. If the film awakens audiences even for a moment, to see that this is happening and important, "then I guess it's worth it."
Reuters
15-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Reuters
Israeli director's 'Letter to David' film about hostage seeks to capture person behind the horror
BERLIN, Feb 14 (Reuters) - For Tom Shoval, making the film "A Letter to David" was a way to ensure that his friend David Cunio was not just a face on a kidnapped poster after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, during which over 250 hostages were taken to Gaza by militants. The material coming in the day of the attack, which left at least 1,200 people dead, was "uncensored, unfiltered, with no dignity, no way to look at perspective and to understand something - just horror, horror, horror," Shoval told Reuters. It was "this blast of images, of carnage and violence, graphic violence, that almost makes you blind," he said. "You can't really see the person. You just see the horror." In the film, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on Friday, Shoval wanted to show that Cunio, who remains a hostage, was someone with motivations, dreams and nightmares. "I wanted to show that and release the person from this horror that was blinding us all," he said. What resulted was "A Letter to David," Shoval's deeply personal cinematic message to Cunio, who starred along with his twin brother in the director's first feature, 2013's "Youth." The film uses footage from "Youth" along with home video shot by the Cunios during the making of that film. That is contrasted against footage shot by Shoval in the Cunios' kibbutz in the weeks and months after the attack, showing how the tight-knit community was changed by it. "I felt that I have to talk to him somehow," said Shoval. "I'm a filmmaker and this is the only way I can approach it." In the intimate home video footage, the Cunio twins film their day-to-day lives at Kibbutz Nir Oz: wandering around an orange grove, pulling pranks from a rooftop, flirting with girls. "Watching that old footage, it was chilling," Shoval said. 'HE WILL COME BACK' The film, said Shoval, was a way to mourn the end of an era, but he does not mourn for David. "For me he's alive and he will come back. And the film is in a way a cry of hope for that," he said. Shoval hopes that seeing the film will let others get to know David and raise awareness of the hostages' hard conditions. "It's a matter of life and death," he said. The ups and downs in hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas have been "a roller coaster," said Shoval, but he does not want the fact that there are still hostages to feel normal. Palestinian militant groups have said that they will release three hostages seized from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Saturday, though Cunio was not among them. Hamas had earlier threatened not to proceed with the release of more hostages after it accused Israel of violating the terms of the ceasefire by blocking aid from entering Gaza. "It's worse that we will get used to the fact that there are hostages there and just live our lives," Shoval said. If the film awakens audiences even for a moment, to see that this is happening and important, "then I guess it's worth it."
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Berlin festival seeks to bury Gaza row with Israeli hostage film
The Berlin film festival premiered a documentary about an Israeli hostage held by Hamas on Friday as it seeks to move on from controversy over its stance on Gaza at last year's edition. "A Letter to David" by Israeli filmmaker Tom Shoval is a tribute to David Cunio, who was taken by Palestinian militant group Hamas from the Nir Oz kibbutz on October 7, 2023, and is still being held hostage in Gaza. Shoval had previously featured Cunio and his twin brother Eitan in his award-winning debut feature film "Youth", which premiered at the Berlinale in 2013. In the new film, screening in the festival's Special category, Shoval uses excerpts from "Youth" alongside unseen footage and interviews with Cunio's family members to create a tribute to his missing friend. They include David's twin brother Eitan, his mother, and his wife Sharon Cunio and twin daughters -- who were also captured by Hamas fighters on October 7 but released after 52 days. Shoval said he had decided to make the film because he did not want David to be perceived as just "a hostage you see on a poster". "He is also a real person. He was an actor at some point in his life, he has a family, he has a mother, he has a father. He exists not only as an image," Shoval told AFP. "It was very important to me to convey this, and also to show the pain that the family is going through." - 'Torn apart' - In the film, David's twin Eitan shows a tattoo of stars on his wrist -- which David also has -- as he talks about his brother, hunched over and smoking a cigarette. Eitan also takes the viewer on a tour of his and David's old homes in the kibbutz, giving a harrowing blow-by-blow account of what happened to them on October 7. For Eitan, being separated from his brother has been "like being torn apart" and he is "not the same person any more", Shoval said. The Berlinale was heavily criticised last year after several filmmakers were accused of making anti-Semitic remarks on stage at the closing awards ceremony. US filmmaker Ben Russell, wearing a Palestinian scarf, accused Israel of committing "genocide" in the Gaza Strip, while Palestinian filmmaker Basel Adra said the Palestinian population was being "massacred" by Israel. Ahead of this year's festival, the Berlinale published guidelines on its website on freedom of expression, anti-Semitism and showing solidarity with the Palestinian cause. "We... stand by the right of our filmmakers to talk about the impulses behind their work and their experiences of the world. The Berlinale welcomes different points of view, even if this creates tension or controversy," they said. Tricia Tuttle, who took over as the new director of the Berlinale in April last year, said she was "surprised" about the backlash against the comments made last year, describing them as "free speech". - Red-carpet vigil - "I'm more upset that there wasn't a sort of place in the festival for people to feel empathy or hear empathy for the hostages too," she told AFP. "We didn't speak up for David Cunio last year and I feel like we really missed an opportunity. "While I want to be incredibly careful that we don't continue to silence voices that are expressing sorrow and solidarity and an urge for Palestinian statehood, I also want to make sure that we show that we care about people who we have a relationship with." At the opening of the Berlinale on Thursday, Tuttle joined a vigil for David Cunio on the red carpet. Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures. Militants also took 251 hostages, of whom 73 remain in Gaza, including at least 35 the Israeli military says are dead. Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,239 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the UN considers reliable. fec/sr/jxb
The Guardian
14-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Tilda Swinton decries ‘internationally enabled mass murder' at Berlin film festival
Tilda Swinton has given a speech at the Berlin film festival in which she called out the 'the astonishing savagery of spite, state-perpetrated and internationally enabled mass murder'. Swinton was speaking after being awarded a Golden Bear for lifetime achievement at the festival, and without naming Ukraine, Gaza – or Donald Trump – excoriated what she called 'our greed-addicted governments'. In remarks reported by the Hollywood Reporter, Swinton took aim at the 'entitled domination and the astonishing savagery of spite, state-perpetrated and internationally enabled mass murder … unacceptable to human society'. She added: 'These are facts. They need to be faced. So for the sake of clarity, let's name it. The inhumane is being perpetrated on our watch. I'm here to name it without hesitation or doubt in my mind, and to lend my unwavering solidarity to all those who recognise the unacceptable complacency of our greed-addicted governments who make nice with planet wreckers and war criminals, wherever they come from.' Swinton also made a more explicit jab at Trump's plan to redevelop Gaza as a coastal resort, by praising independent cinema as 'an unlimited realm, innately inclusive, immune to efforts of occupation, colonisation, takeover, ownership or the development of riviera property'. Swinton's speech followed a vigil that took place at the opening ceremony in support of Israeli actor David Cunio, who was taken hostage in the 7 October attack on Israel and is yet to be released. The festival's artistic director Tricia Tuttle joined actors Christian Berkel, Andrea Sawatzki, and Ulrich Matthes in holding up a photo of Cunio, with a documentary about Cunio, called A Letter to David, due to receive its world premiere at the festival. Berlin's 2024 edition was dogged by controversy over the Gaza conflict, with participants in the awards ceremony condemning Israel and calling for a ceasefire, followed by German politicians attacking the festival and Germany's culture minister Claudia Roth describing the protests as 'shockingly one-sided and characterised by deep hatred of Israel'. Tuttle later said that the controversy had meant that some film-makers were 'questioning whether they want to come' to the festival over fears of censorship. At a press conference following her Golden Bear award, Swinton said that she had not heeded the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign group's call to boycott the festival after the 2024 protests as it would be 'more useful' for her to attend. She said: 'I'm a great admirer of and have a great deal of respect for BDS and I think about it a lot … I am here today – and yesterday and tomorrow and the next day – because I decided to come, I decided it was more important for me to come. I was given, thanks to the festival, a platform which I decided in a personal moment was potentially more useful to all our causes than me not turning up. It was a personal judgment call, that I take full responsibility for.'
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Vigil for Hamas Hostage Israeli Actor David Cunio Held on Potsdamer Platz as Berlinale Opens
A group of artists and filmmakers held a vigil Thursday on Berlin's Potsdamer Platz, as the Berlin Film Festival kicked off, to call for the release of David Cunio, an Israeli actor who was one of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, from the Nir Oz kibbutz. Cunio is also the subject of the documentary 'A Letter to David,' by filmmaker Tom Shoval, which premieres Feb. 14 in the Berlinale Special section. More from Variety Trailer for WW2-Set Drama 'The Pianist's Choice' Starring 'The Substance' Actor Unveiled by Sales Company Loco Films at the EFM (EXCLUSIVE) Julio Medem's '8,' at This Year's EFM, Explores 90 Years of Spanish History Through Two Intertwined Lives Selma Blair to Star in Supernatural Thriller 'Silent,' Architect Launching at EFM (EXCLUSIVE) The group behind the vigil, called Bring David Home Now, has published on open letter whose more than a hundred signatories includes directors Michel Franco and Ari Folman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and German stars Iris Berben and Andrea Sawatzki, and prominent producer Max Wiedemann. 'As the Berlin Film Festival takes place in the city of Berlin for the 75th time, we would like to remind festivalgoers that there is a captive with ties to the festival who is still held hostage inside the tunnels of Hamas somewhere in the Gaza Strip,' the letter said. 'Mr. David Cunio starred in the film 'The Youth' in 2012, which won a special prize in the Berlinale that year. He was a special guest of the festival and must have had fond memories of it,' it added. The letter explained that 'like hundreds of other Israelis, David was kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, from his home, along with his wife and their 3-year-old twins. Their house was burned to the ground. David's wife and children were released after 52 days in captivity. David's brother Ariel was also kidnapped along with his girlfriend Arbel. She was recently released after 15 months of complete isolation. However, the two Cunio brothers are still held somewhere inside the tunnels of Gaza.' As the film festival starts, and Berlin becomes full of life and art, we call for the immediate release of David, his brother Ariel, and the many dozens of Israeli hostages who are being held in the tunnels of Gaza. We pray that one day David would be able to visit Berlin and enjoy it again,' the letter concluded. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Grammy Predictions, From Beyoncé to Kendrick Lamar: Who Will Win? Who Should Win? What's Coming to Netflix in February 2025
