A powerful, complex and nuanced documentary centred around the community at the epicentre of the attacks on 7th October 2023 and the men who came to kill them.
Whatever your take on it, the 7th October, 2023 changed the course of history. The firestorm now engulfing the Middle East and world opinion was a reaction to a spasm of unimaginable violence experienced by a relatively small group of fairly untypical Israelis.
The targets chosen by Hamas were mainly Israeli kibbutzes - historically left-wing co-operative communities - a few minutes’ drive from the defensive wall behind which 2.3 million Palestinians endured the twin burdens of the Israeli blockade and the tyranny of Hamas.
The events of 7th October are documented from many angles, by extensive security camera footage, phone video, Whatsapp messages and calls. The most shocking recordings are those made by Hamas gunmen who strap GoPro cameras to their heads and begin recording while still in Gaza, videoing the atrocities and often their own death from an Israeli defender’s bullet.
Who were these young men? What motivated them to commit such depraved acts? Using forensic OSINT techniques this film reveals as much as possible about their history and their lives in Gaza in the months before the attack.
At the heart of the film, however, is testimony from a thoughtfully-chosen cast of survivors from the hardest-hit single community in Israel that day, which suffered 100 dead and 50 kidnapped: Kibbutz Be’eri.
Be’eri’s giant printing presses are where Israeli driving licences are made, its art gallery, where the Hamas gunmen corralled hostages before abducting them to Gaza, skewed towards the avant-garde. It is Israel’s most successful and prosperous kibbutz, founded in 1946 but still organised according to the original co-operativist kibbutz ideals.
Combining insightful testimony with extraordinary video and audio material One Day in October will create a powerful, authentic and intensely personal narrative of that fateful day through the eyes of families who survived the assault on Kibbutz Be’eri.
But this will be more than a straight account of a deliberate, close-quarters massacre of the children, women and men of the kibbutz. Our aim is to elicit from our thoughtful, politically diverse cast a series of insights drawn from their experience of life in what many describe as a sort of paradise, but one which was uncomfortably close to the Gaza wall and the pent-up people it contained.
From the award-winning AMOS PICTURES (Leaving Neverland, I Am Andrew Tate, Four Hours At The Capitol, Escape From Kabul)
PRESS FEATURES
BROADCAST
THE INDEPENDENT
**** [Four Stars]
THE TIMES
"harrowing but important viewing"
THE MIRROR
Pick Of The Day
THE MIRROR
**** [Four Stars]
THE TELEGRAPH
"shares heart-wrenching new insights into Kibbutz Be’eri massacre... features moving testimonies from survivors"
THE JEWISH CHRONICLE
Pick Of The Week
THE RADIO TIMES
"as extraordinarily moving as it is powerful"
THE INDEPENDENT
"The most powerful scenes, (...) are the interviews with the survivors, who somehow manage to speak on camera about the most horrific events imaginable"
THE INDEPENDENT
"excellent and it lightly touches on some details that too many have forgotten..."
THE TIMES
Pick Of The Week
THE SUN
"a meticulous Channel 4 documentary"
THE GUARDIAN
"an unflinching account of the attack on Kibbutz Be'eri..."
THE DAILY MAIL
**** [Four Stars]
THE DAILY MAIL
"The .... documentary does more than just recount the events of that day — it aims to offer a window into the lives of the people who lived in what Reed describes as “a sort of paradise, but one uncomfortably close to the Gaza wall”.
THE JEWISH TELEGRAPH
"One Day in October’ is fearless filmmaker’s take on Hamas massacre"
THE JEWISH TELEGRAPH
Pick Of The Week
THE DAILY MAIL
Pick Of The Week
THE WEEK
**** [Four Stars]
THE GUARDIAN
"As urgent as it is hard to watch."
THE TELEGRAPH
"Dan Reed’s devastating film [...] It is immersive filmmaking."
THE TELEGRAPH
"The accounts are incomprehensibly terrifying."
THE GUARDIAN
Pick Of The Week
THE OBSERVER