Update, Aug. 20: The Road Between Us will have its world premiere at TIFF on Sept. 10, at 2 pm. at Roy Thomson Hall.
Canada’s Jewish community was celebrating a victory, Aug. 15, as Toronto’s International Film Festival (TIFF) reversed a decision it had made earlier in the week, to pull a film about October 7 from the schedule.
TIFF had initially accepted The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, a documentary by Toronto filmmaker Barry Avrich about a retired IDF general’s race to save his son and their young family who were living on Kibbutz Nahal Oz, when Hamas terrorists invaded the community.
On Aug. 12, Deadline.com, an entertainment industry website, reported that TIFF had reversed course and informed Avrich by email that the film was being pulled from the schedule, citing issues that the footage shot by Hamas had not been legally cleared for use, as well as mentioning security concerns.
The abrupt decision by one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals made international headlines. Two days later, on the evening of Aug. 14, the festival’s CEO Cameron Bailey, and Avrich issued a joint statement saying the decision had been reversed.
“Both TIFF and the filmmakers have heard the pain and frustration expressed by the public and we want to address this together,” read the statement. “We have worked together to find a resolution to satisfy important safety, legal, and programming concerns. We are pleased to share that The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue will be an official TIFF selection at the festival this year, where we believe it will contribute to the vital conversations that film is meant to inspire.”
The statement also contained an apology, of sorts. “In this case, TIFF’s communication around its requirements did not clearly articulate the concerns and roadblocks that arose, and for that, we are sorry.”
Please see the following statement from TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey regarding The Road Between Us. pic.twitter.com/Qg9D7p3KEZ
— TIFF (@TIFF_NET) August 13, 2025
Details about the world premiere screening will be announced Aug. 20. The festival, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, runs from Sept. 4-14.
Henry Wolfond, chair of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto’s Countering Antisemitism and Hate Committee, was one of several high-profile Torontonians, along with Heather Reisman, CEO of Indigo Books and Music, politicians and leaders of Jewish organizations to lobby TIFF board members about returning the film to the schedule.
Wolfond said over 60,000 emails were sent to TIFF from around the world by people outraged by the decision.
“It’s great to celebrate the reversal of that (decision), but the fact that so many people, thousands of people, had to do this, is really a shanda,” Wolfond said in an interview with The CJN.
Wolfond says the TIFF board members that he personally knows and contacted were also disturbed by the initial decision. The film will require additional security when it is screened, but that should not be an obstacle to showing it, he said.
“The people I spoke to, they did raise the concerns about the security… but from the perspective of censorship or excluding a film because it happened to be an Israeli story, they were as outraged as we in the community are,” he said.
“It’s hard not to see antisemitism as playing a role in this when they came back with an excuse that the footage from Hamas body cams of the atrocities they committed on Oct. 7, that half the population of the planet has seen, … that not having the permission from the terrorists themselves to air this should be the roadblock. You you have to read between the lines and say there’s more to it than that. Other documentaries where there’s footage of atrocities taking place in the world, this demand has not been imposed.”
The controversy at TIFF this week is not an isolated instance, Wolfond believes. “Unfortunately, it’s reflective of what’s happening with arts institutions globally since Oct. 7, with antisemitic bias showing itself.”
He points to the difficulty that the film, October 8, which documents the rise of antisemitism on university campuses, has encountered in finding distributors and placement in film festivals.
The decision to include The Road Between Us in the festival and then rescind the invitation generated a groundswell of opposition, with former donors calling on current financial supporters to rescind their pledges and to boycott the festival.
Susan Reitman Michaels, a member of the family that had donated the land where the flagship theatre, TIFF Lightbox, was built, wrote in an open letter published in The CJN that she was “heartbroken” by the initial decision. “What it looks like, and feels like, is the silencing of a Jewish voice at a time when Jewish voices are already being marginalized.”
Michaels says she was relieved to learn the film will be screened. “I’m cautiously optimistic that Cameron Bailey and TIFF have learned their lesson,” she said in an interview. “I can only hope in this milestone year, that Lightbox, TIFF’s home that Leslie and Clara Reitman’s journey to freedom inspired, continues to shine a light for truth, diversity of thought and cultural bravery.”
Even though the decision was reversed, the damage to the internationally renowned festival will linger, Wolfond says. “I think it is a stain on their reputation as a platform for freedom of expression, for artistic expression,” he said.
Canada’s largest Jewish organizations had much the same reaction with the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre commenting, “Much work remains to rebuild trust with the Jewish community and all Canadians, and to restore TIFF’s reputation both here and abroad. TIFF must now demonstrate through its actions that Jewish voices will be respected and protected moving forward and that important truths, however painful, will not be silenced.”
A statement from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said, “It should never have been a question whether one of our leading cultural institutions would showcase a story of courage and survival. There is an urgent need for accountability to ensure this can never happen again – at TIFF or anywhere else.”
