The Toronto International Film Festival has reversed course and has decided that it will air the documentary it had earlier uninvited after the backlash it got for canceling the showing.
The right decision but this never should have happened https://t.co/rySDEXcdcC
— Adam Milstein (@AdamMilstein) August 14, 2025
This is a moral victory, first of all, and will also have generated the “Streisand effect,” ensuring that the film will get many more views than before.
Count the affair as a win, even if the underlying reality is that the entire affair also highlights the truly shameful state of our cultural elite’s moral compass.
In a stunning reversal, the Toronto International Film Festival will “ensure” the screening of a documentary about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel after initially booting the film because the terror group hadn’t given permission to use its footage.
TIFF’s turnaround comes only as the festival faced outrage over reports that “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue” wouldn’t be screened, because the filmmakers used footage filmed by Hamas but didn’t obtain the rights for the clips.
Festival CEO Cameron Bailey defended the earlier decision to bump the documentary from its September lineup, denying accusations that “censorship” played a role.
I was never certain about the underlying motivations of the cancellation, other than the stated reason was complete bulls**t. Nobody was worried about copyright issues. The problem was politics, and obviously so.
But was the political issue that members of the TIFF staff were antisemites, anti-Zionists, or just afraid of facing a backlash from those groups? Or, perhaps, both?
🚨 UPDATE 🚨
TIFF will now show the documentary.They’ve decided they don’t need Hamas’ permission. Either that, or they’re admitting that excuse was always bullshit. pic.twitter.com/UUeUjb0NAl
— Jews Fight Back 🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@JewsFightBack) August 14, 2025
That the documentary had been invited in the first place suggested to me that at least some of the people choosing the entrants were sympathetic, so I avoided any assumption that the motivation was hatred of Jews or Israel. It seemed more likely that the concern was that the AUDIENCE was filled with antisemites, and the TIFF would take a reputational hit.
It appears that there is some dispute as to whether there is a guarantee that the film will be screened, but after an unequivocal public statement that it will I suspect that the festival cannot reverse itself again. When you say “ensure,” there is little ambiguity.
“I have asked our legal team to work with the filmmaker on considering all options available,” he added.
But the documentary’s filmmakers said the film has not been reinstated at the festival.
“As it stands, TIFF has not communicated to us in writing that it has reversed its decision. This continues to be a negotiation.”
The filmmakers previously panned the festival’s legal argument as ridiculous – arguing the Hamas footage they used was live streamed as the terrorists butchered civilians, and therefore “clearly in the public domain.”
“The topic of creators’ rights is something I work with regularly,” documentary producer Talia Harris Ram told The Times of Israel.
“There’s no legal problem with showing these clips, which were already streamed live on October 7. From an intellectual property standpoint, they are clearly in the public domain,” Ram added.
“The Road Between Us” tells the story of retired Israel Defense Forces General Noam Tibon, and his efforts on Oct. 7, 2023, to save his family and neighbors as Hamas murdered 1,200 men, women and children and took another 251 people hostage.
No doubt the TIFF will now face a different backlash–that of the antisemites who will be furious that the film gets a screening. To be honest, I feel for the TIFF leadership, although they created this mess in the first place. Usually, these festivals are all about self-promotion, feel-good prestige for the city, and the cultural elites tongue-bathing each other over films that nobody else will ever see.
It’s the second-raters enjoying a bit of prestige. Now that they have finally gotten the attention they so crave, it is over this. People will say that any publicity is good publicity, but that is hardly true for the TIFF in this case.
TIFF and Oct. 7 documentary makers come to ‘resolution,’ film will be screened after dayslong back-and-forth pic.twitter.com/2zRbzzdfr3
— New York Post (@nypost) August 15, 2025
On the other hand, The Road Between US has gotten the better of the publicity competition. I doubt I ever would have heard of the film, but now I am anxious to see it, as are, I bet, a lot more people. A film that would likely have been seen by a few thousand will likely get 10, 20, or 30x more viewers at least.
It is striking that Pravda has managed to bury the October 7th attacks underneath an avalanche of propaganda churned out by Hamas. People need to be reminded why the war in Gaza started, and why it must be finished with complete victory. I hope that this tempest in a teapot will serve to highlight the fact that Hamas is a group of barbarians in desperate need of being killed.
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
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