Protesters gather outside TIFF premiere of documentary about retired Israeli general

By Canadian Press on September 10, 2025.

TORONTO — Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protesters have started to gather outside the theatre where a documentary about a retired Israeli general’s rescue mission during the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks is due to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Police are also outside Roy Thomson Hall, where “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” directed by Montreal’s Barry Avrich, is due to screen this afternoon.

Meanwhile, journalists and talent attending a nearby red carpet ahead of the premiere had to pass through multiple layers of security.

The film chronicles retired Israeli general Noam Tibon’s mission to rescue his family during the attacks.

Last month, TIFF said it pulled the film from its lineup due to security concerns and rights issues, prompting criticism from politicians, Jewish organizations and entertainment industry figures.

The festival reinstated the film days later, pledging clearer communication around its programming decisions.

Several protests calling for action on the war in Gaza have taken place along TIFF’s main strip since the festival began, with demonstrators telling The Canadian Press on Saturday they were concerned that Avrich’s film was “art-washing” Israel’s ongoing offensive in the region.

The team behind the documentary said last month they are not political filmmakers or activists but storytellers.

They added that films are meant to stimulate “debate from every perspective that can both entertain us and make us uncomfortable.”

“The Road Between Us” is described on TIFF’s website as a “rescue thriller” in which Avrich combines new interviews with footage from Oct. 7.

Several films by Palestinian filmmakers are also showing at TIFF, including the historical drama “Palestine 36,” which transports audiences to the 1930s, when the territory was under British control, before the creation of the state of Israel.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in their attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, prompting Israel’s retaliatory offensive.

Since then, more than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in the Gaza Strip, local health officials said last week. The ministry doesn’t say how many of those killed in the war were militants or civilians, but says women and children make up around half the dead.

— With files from The Associated Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2025.

Alex Nino Gheciu and Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press

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