Why did Hollywood ghost a movie about antisemitism? - with Wendy Sachs & Lorenzo Vidino
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Over the last 17 months, we have watched in shock as Ivy League campuses became hotbeds of support for terrorists and their ideology. A powerful new documentary that the Academy Awards refused to consider illuminates how - and more importantly why - college campuses became a pivotal front in the war against Israel.
“October 8” opens in theaters on Friday, March 14th, featuring a number of Call Me Back guests. The film is riveting, and revealing, examining the forces that enabled Islamist extremists to shape the minds of millions of well-meaning Americans.
We sat down with the filmmaker and one of the experts in her film, to discuss Hamas’s infiltration of academia, the entertainment industry, and other progressive spaces.
Wendy Sachs is an author, documentary filmmaker and Director and Executive Producer of October 8.
Lorenzo Vidino is Director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.
More about “October 8” here: https://www.october8film.com/
See if the film is playing in a theater near you: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Su6dhLxHGWuOKrDjXregnmgPd6SxJcAd4fRVa07yTvk/edit?tab=t.0
Full Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
LV: And it's very important to know that several leaders of Hamas, like people who run Hamas, out of Qatar today were students in the United States, spent many years in the United States, still have family in the United States. Back in ‘93, they had that meeting in Philadelphia, entirely wire tapped by the FBI, and they described basically the post Oslo agreement strategy for the group. How to sabotage the agreements because of course they don't want peace. They say opening no peace with the Jews. They discuss the strategy in America, which is a strategy of cultural infiltration, influencing media, politics, universities, and think tanks pushing the Hamas narrative repackaged.
DS: It is 8:15 AM on Tuesday, March 11th in New York City. It is 2:15 PM on Tuesday, March 11th in Israel. Earlier this month when the Palestinian Israeli film called No Other Land, took home the Oscar for best documentary, a debate ripped open surrounding the film's merits. And what the Academy's choice tells us about the state of the entertainment industry as it comes to its independent judgment of geopolitical conflicts, and specifically how it should be addressing the rise of antisemitism. Meanwhile, Ivy League schools such as Columbia University and others now are facing the consequences of having too tolerant an approach to free speech when it comes to it devolving into harassment, hate speech, the glorification of terrorism, and in many cases outright violence against Jews. Well, a new film that was not considered for an Oscar by the Academy, but in my humble opinion, should have been, tackles both of these issues. It's called October 8, and it chronicles how, and more importantly, why college campuses have become one of the most pivotal fronts in the war against Israel. It also reveals the forces that enabled violent extremists to capture the hearts and minds of millions of well-meaning Americans. The film is a damning, intimate account of the shocking demonstrations of support for Hamas and not just Hamas, in American cities and on college campuses beginning the day after October 7th, hence October 8. October 8 opens in theaters across the country on Friday, March 14th so you can go see this film in the next couple of days. It's in many AMC theaters and Regal theaters. It's in numerous cities from coast to coast, so definitely check out where it is playing 'cause it may be playing near you. It features a cast that includes Debra Messing, Michael Rappaport, Noah Tishby, others who have become well-known for their activism since October 7th, like Shai Davidai, Richie Torres, and a number of student activists. I also have a minor role in the film, but that is not why my guests are here today. I am excited to welcome to the podcast the filmmaker and one of the more important characters in this film, October 8. Wendy Sachs is an author, documentary filmmaker, and director and executive producer of October 8 and Lorenzo Vidino is director of the program on extremism at George Washington University. Lorenzo plays, as I said, an important role in the film explaining how Hamas and its ideology infiltrated the media, academia in other progressive spaces. Wendy, Lorenzo, welcome to the podcast.
WS: Thank you so much for having us, Dan.
LV: Thank you.
DS: Great to have you both. As I was trying to name the historic event that covers your film, it occurred to me that there really isn't a name. We all use the term October 7th. We don't even say October 7th, 2023. We just use October 7th, like, 9/11, you know, and October 7th describes the war that has followed October 7th, the defensive war that Israel's had to fight. But what you guys focus on in your film, there is no one term, there was nothing like what happened in the United States after October 7th. So you titled your film October 8. Were you trying to give a name to this period that is a direct result of October 7th, but is actually something different from October 7th?
WS: Yeah, I, I was, you know, first of all, as a filmmaker, I was differentiating our film from others out there. There are other films that are documenting the atrocities that happened on October 7th, the survivor stories, the horrific events at the Nova Festival, uh, there's a film called We Will Dance Again, but my film October 8 is about the explosion of anti-Semitism on college campuses and on social media and in the streets of America in the aftermath of October 7th. And to me, that is what this film is so about, and it's really about, you know, Islamic extremism verse democracy. It's not just about Jews, and it's not just about the state of Israel, but it's about how did we get to this moment when Hamas is being celebrated as freedom fighters rather than as terrorists on the most elite American college campuses and in the streets of America. That's really what this film is about.
DS: And Wendy, I often say, I always consider myself naive on October 7th, because on October 7th, I distinctly remember having a conversation with my wife where I said, okay, well finally the world will be with us. Finally, the world will understand what Israel's up against and the outrage of the world will be directed at those that were committing atrocities and a massacre against Jews. And what I didn't anticipate was October 8th to use your term, which is no, the outrage of the world will be directed at Jews for objecting to being massacred. So at what point did you realize we have a real October 8th problem and I've got a chronicle in it. Because what's striking about the film is you have so much footage from those early days where you really chronicle how things just spiraled out of control so immediately after October 7th. It was weeks before Israel actually formally responded. I mean, militarily, kinetically, the attack of October 7th didn't launch a ground operation into Gaza for weeks. But yet this response that you're chronicling happened like in the blink of an eye. So at what point did you say, I've gotta document this and just explain that process.
WS: Yeah, listen, like all of us, I think we were watching everything unfold on October 7th. I was visiting my daughter at the University of Wisconsin. It was game day and our phones were blowing up with the rocket alerts. I have the app on my phone. We were seeing everything that was happening in Israel, and then we were seeing the images coming out of Israel from Facebook and from Telegram, and these horrible videos of babies and children and grandparents being murdered and being kidnapped into Gaza. And I think, anyone who was watching, and certainly the Jewish community, we felt gutted by what we were seeing, and it was like a generational trauma unleashed on October 7th. But for me, it was really on October 8th when I saw what was happening in Times Square, where again, Hamas is being celebrated and there are protests against Israel. To your point, Dan, Israel hadn't responded yet. And then on October 9th, we see what's happening at Harvard where more than 30 student groups are signing a letter blaming Israel for the attack on itself. And we keep seeing what's happening at Cornell and NYU and Columbia and Tulane. And I thought that the world had lost its mind and none of this made any sense. And to your point, again, Israel hadn't responded yet. They were still collecting the bodies. We didn't even know what had really happened. And it was a few weeks after that that I thought I need to document what's going on here. And I wrote a treatment for what became the film.
DS: Okay. I want to talk about that scene at Harvard in a moment, but ‘before we do. I've watched the film, it has a very coherent feel to it, like it has if you really wanna understand like the TikTok of events, how things actually happened when they did in a, in a very linear way. The film does that. So when you were approaching this film and you're, you know, directing it, what are the sort of do's and don'ts of making a film like this? Partly because there's just so much stuff happening in real time as you're making the movie.
WS: A lot of things. I mean, I, first of all, I didn't wanna litigate the war. I wanted to make that, this is not political. We were not talking about the Bibi government, we were not talking about who has a right to territory or land or settlements. That's not what this is about. What I wanted to really unpack is how anti-Zionism has become anti-Semitism today. Full stop. There is no gray anymore where there might've been gray before within some, you know, people in the community sort of unclear what you know anti-Zionism was. We now know that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. Antisemitism has mutated over time, and that is what we are seeing today. I wanted to also get into this sort of irrational, obsessive hate of Israel. Like how did we get to that moment? And there are so many pieces to this. There are so many nuances. It's not so black and white and it's a really complicated story to tell. So I wanted to understand how media bias, right, and bias coming from NGOs like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and social media propaganda, how that has all fed into this sort of collective that has created into the American mind, into our culture and for young people today, this sort of obsessive hate of Israel as like a pariah state among nations. And that is a really complicated story to explain, certainly in a documentary, and that, that was sort of the challenge that I had, but I, I was so intent on explaining this. What I wanted to focus on was not just, you know, going after the media in general, saying The New York Times is terrible on Israel, The Washington Post is biased, The NPR, BBC. But instead, we focused on an incident. We focused on that hospital bombing, you know, so-called bombing, where Israel apparently bombed a hospital and 500 people are dead. And the media, the New York Times decides that they're going to take Hamas' version of events, right? Rather than actually wait for the Israeli government or for the IDF. And the IDF had said, wait, wait, we're we're looking into this, but they ran with Hamas’s story. And that to me just represented exactly what we have going on in the media today and what's so wrong and what's so insidious. So there's so many different complicated pieces that I was trying to pack together in a film that doesn't feel too academic, doesn't feel too wonky, has a pacing that's gonna engage an audience, but also doesn't feel like we're preaching and doesn't feel like we're coming from one political perspective, which is also why it was so important to me to have non-Jewish voices in this. Film people across the political spectrum, very even voices, people like Lorenzo Vidino who, you know, bring a credibility and an expertise to this issue. I wanted to make sure that this film really held up. I knew it was gonna be scrutinized. I knew I was going into like very volatile, very radioactive territory, even making this film. So I needed to make sure that our experts and that our facts were really solid and you know, that it really held up to all scrutiny.
DS: We mentioned a moment ago, this one scene about Harvard, like the match being lit at Harvard. Uh, let's just play a short clip from the film that addresses that. And then I wanna bring Lorenzo into the conversation. “In the early hours of October 8th, 34 student groups, really championed by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee, promoted this statement. The opening line says we hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all the violence unfolding. At no point was Hamas ever condemned, or even named. The statement went viral all over the world. In a strange way, Harvard had become outside of the Middle East itself, the single most important and battleground for forces on both sides of this continuing struggle. Hundreds of people supporting the Palestinians gathered outside Cambridge City Hall today. Dozens supporting Israel held a counter protest across the street. Once Harvard had set the tone, it started this unfathomable chain reaction. Free Palestine. Free Palestine.” Okay, so that is a scene from the film. It captures how people were reacting just days after October 7th. Lorenzo, you have been studying extremism and Islamism for years. What were you thinking as you saw these images I just played of college students and professors at Ivy League schools celebrating and justifying the atrocities of October 7th. Like as you're watching this, were you saying, did you have the reaction that Wendy and I had, which is, what the hell, am I taking crazy pills? Like, what is going on here? Or were you thinking, of course, of course this is happening. This is just a logical extension of what you have been studying for years and years and years, but many of us we're not paying attention to.
LV: I will look better if I were to say that yes, a hundred percent I saw it coming. I did not, or at least I saw one part of it. I think what we saw from October 8th is basically two components coming together. The first is the work of the Hamas network in America, and this is part of the story that I tell, and other people on the, in the movie tell how a very small but very clever, very sophisticated network of Hamas activists, we're not talking about Hamas sympathizers, but people who are Hamas leadership through and through, that have set up shop in America since the 1980s have created an infrastructure that has pushed a narrative, that has created organizations to infiltrate the American public discourse, uh, uh, universities in particular, but also the media, politics. That part has been the same for the last. 25, 30 years very public. So it has always existed. So the same kind of protest that we saw on October 8th, 9th, and 10th, we would've seen them also 20 years ago. What changed and what surprised me was the size. The fact that this small group of activists that 20 years ago were able to mobilize maybe 50 people, a hundred people tops. Now they could mobilize thousands. And I think that is the second component to me, which is the change in the American discourse, particularly on college campuses. The mainstreaming of a certain culture, a certain approach to, let's call it identity politics on steroids, let's call it woke, let's call it uber progressive, whatever we wanna call it. But the narrative that divides the world into oppressor and oppressed, but obsessive over post-Colonial theory and so on. That mindset created a fertile ground for a much larger number of people, many of which know nothing about the conflict and no idea what river and what sea they're chanting about to become very susceptible, very receptive to the narrative that the Hamas network pushes. So when the two come together, that's the perfect storm and I think that's what we saw brewing over the last decade and nobody really paid attention. And so while I was, in a way, obviously very aware of the first component, the second component wasn’t that clear, it became dramatically evident on, on October 8th.
DS: We just posted this episode on Call Me Back two episodes ago, a conversation I had at the ADL Conference with the president of University of Michigan, Santa Ono and the Chancellor of Washington University, Andrew Martin. And what Martin said, when the protest and an encampment first got going at WashU and the school shut it down pretty quickly, they found that something like 75% of the quote unquote “students” at the encampment or protest were not actual students. In fact, 75%, if I have this right, didn't even have any affiliation with the university and the president of University of Michigan basically said the same thing. I don't know if he had a precise statistic, but he basically said that many of the people who were fomenting, organizing, infiltrating had no affiliation with the university. Many of them had traveled from outside the immediate area, A. B, they both said that when they looked at the materials that were being circulated, disseminated at these encampments, it was clear these were not organically created materials by students. There was some universal quality to them. The kind of thing that's like, like the stuff is being disseminated nationally from some central source. So did that aspect surprise you?
LV: No, neither. I would say the level of organization is something that, uh, should not be overlooked. The fact that we're talking about national structures of two components, basically there's the Islamist and the far left component. There's entities that are more or less derivative from Hamas, people like students or justice in Palestine, American Muslims for Palestine, that have those connections to that Hamas milieu we've been describing. And then the more left-leaning organizations, some of them with a Palestinian twist close to the PFLP entities like Samidun and then entities that are just far left outfits. That milieu, those connections among those organizations have existed for a long time. They come together for a variety of causes, not just the Palestinian one, uh, but obviously in particular for the Palestinian one, and that allows for that level of coordination. So we saw seminars, workshops being delivered by professional agitators mostly from the leftwing crowd to encampments. Uh, the materials were largely circulated from the Islamist media, but there were contributions, let's say, from the left. So the two come together. The second component, what you said about the external people, that is also entirely true. We're talking about professional agitators, mostly from the far left crowd, from the Antifa crowd, occupy crowd. These are people who do that for a living basically. And if you look at the funding, which is obviously something that has been done, not just by researchers like me, but by by the government over the last year or so, you will see that a good part of the funding from this milieu comes from entities that fund the far left. There's been traces of Chinese government funding or you know, private organizations, wealth individuals. Uh, but on the far left.
DS: Okay. So I wanna play a clip that gets right to what you're speaking to right now, which is the organization origins of a lot of this. So let's play this next clip. “Everything that we saw was organized and directed by SJP. They took the initiative to host the rallies to provide the chance. SJP or Students for Justice in Palestine is probably the most active network of students, professors, administrators, and activists vehemently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist. 75% of most of the resources that support Islamophobia is coming from pro-Israel sources. Hatem Basian, the current chairman of American Muslims for Palestine, created the first branch of students for Justice in Palestine on the campus of Berkeley in the 1990s. Well, we've been watching intifada in Palestine. We've been watching an uprising in Iraq, and it's about time that we have intifada in this country that shares fundamentally the dynamics in here. And today we believe that there are about 200. Different branches of SJP operating on campuses across the United States. But when I say we believe, I say that because they are an unincorporated association. It's not a not-for-profit. It's not a 501-C3. They actually don't exist on paper in any accountable way. People think they are grassroots. What I don't think they understand is that a terrorist group is actually providing them with marching orders.” So Lorenzo, that clip from the film from October 8, speaks to exactly what you were just describing a moment ago, but in the film you detail a meeting held by Hamas officials, so this is, you know, official Hamas, not an affiliate, not a student group supporting Hamas, but officials of the terror organization, Hamas in Philadelphia, all the way back in 1993. So can you tell us about that meeting? What happened at that meeting? What they were planning for?
LV: Yeah. Back then Hamas was not a designated terrorist organization.
DS: And when you say designated, sorry, you mean designated by the US State Department?
LV: Yes, correct. The designation came a couple of years later in ‘93 Hamas was not a designated terrorist organization, so you could legally be a Hamas operative in America. Now, obviously the FBI were still watching them. And so what happened in that meeting is that you had basically the top leadership of Hamas in America. And again, it's very important to know that several leaders of Hamas, like people who run Hamas, out of Qatar today were students in the United States, spent many years in the United States, still have family in the United States, so there's very close connection between the US and Hamas leadership. Back in ‘93, we had that meeting in Philadelphia entirely wire tapped by the FBI, and it's a fantastic look into the inner workings of a terrorist organization. And they describe basically the post Oslo agreement strategy for the group, how to sabotage the agreements because of course they don't want peace. They say opening no peace with the Jews and how to operate in America as supporters of Hamas, knowing that they were soon to be designated. And so what they discussed, again, all introduced as evidence in federal trials. The transcripts all there for people to read and listen to. And some of these clips are in Wendy's movie. They discussed the strategy in America, which is a strategy of cultural infiltration. The idea of, uh, influencing media, politics, universities, and think tanks pushing the Hamas narrative repackaged. These are people who know very well the American discourse. They know how to speak to Americans, and they have these workshops. Really, you should see them as workshops in which they argue, well with a left-leaning audience, how do we describe the conflict? How do we do it with a right-leaning audience? And so this is something that they built over the years, but if you read those transcripts, they become eerily relevant in an October 8th environment.
DS: But I guess my question is they're planning, they're building alliances, as you said, infiltrating different parts of American culture, different organizations that are fighting for other causes, building alliances with them. Did they anticipate there would be an October 7th event for them to jump on? Because this seems like October 7th was such a massive event. I mean, we talk about it, right, that more Jews slaughtered in a single day than any other day since the Holocaust. I mean, this was really like a show up, pogrom. I mean, Kishniev, it had that feel. Were they anticipating something big would happen that they would then just jump on? Or did they think they were just gonna continue on this trajectory of building, building, building, building, building, and gradually winning over, quote unquote trying to win over the American public?
LV: That's difficult to say. I have no evidence of them knowing, uh, having for knowledge of, of October 7th.
DS: When I say for knowledge, I don't mean specifically of October 7th. I just mean did they expect there would be one breaking point at some point where they can just, you know, light up their national movement almost like an inflection point moment.
DS: I think that's likely because at the end of the day, Hamas always talked about things like that. It's not like if we look at, uh, what Hamas leadership was talking about for years before was to do something big. The, the details of course were not public, but the fact that Hamas wanted to escalate the conflict was very clear to anybody who paid attention. So obviously these are people who are connected to Hamas leadership. So the big picture, they kind of knew that something like that would happen. And so it's probably not surprising that on October 8th they had a toolkit that they were able to disseminate nationwide with what slogans to sing. They had everything ready and that's the level of coordination you were, you were describing across college campuses. So they were very well prepared to changing their narrative, escalating, and I think that's one of the things that surprised me the most is how emboldening of an event October 7th was for them. One thing is to celebrate the event on the streets of Gaza. Another thing it's doing in America, you should know that there are consequences but right of consequences. For me, yes, it's freedom of speech, but it's a fine line between that and support for terrorism in a country like the US. Yet they didn't shy away from supporting openly Hamas, openly endorsing the, the acts of violence of October 7th. So it was a very invigorating, as one of their leaders say, invigorating event for them.
WS: Just to pick up on that, about the toolkit, the messaging was disseminating across SJP chapters across America, so that messaging, the language, the flood the streets for Palestine. Flood is the Al-Aqsa Flood, the same language, the same messaging is all part of that October 8th toolkit. That's, by the way, a Google document that was circulated. They were ready to go. So I think what Lorenzo describes in the film and what we hear from other experts is like Hamas has been playing the long game here. You know, they're patient, they've been waiting, they've been infiltrating American college campuses. They've been using language like apartheid and colonialism for decades now, and they've been planting the seeds. And then by October 8th, they were ready to go.
DS: Okay. I wanted to get back, Wendy, to the making of the film. Before I do, just one question for you, Lorenzo. You're in academia, and this is addressed in the film, but I just wanna get into it here. Oddly, there's this debate as though there's like a difference between in academia, between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, that you can be against the existence of the Jewish state and not be antisemitic. And you disagree with that. And I, it's a question I get a lot, by the way, I get it from a lot of our Jewish listeners. I get this question all the time. Not that they believe that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism, it's just that they never quite know how to respond to it. They don't have the language of how to address that because it's often presented in a very reasonable way. What I, I can't criticize the Israeli government. I criticize the Israeli government and I'm suddenly an antisemite? And so like I said, they don't have the language to address it. So can you explain how you respond to that?
LV: Yeah, well, the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which is approved by the US government-
DS: IHRA, is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which is this internationally recognized definition of antisemitism.
LV: Which is adopted by the the US government and many other governments across the world, makes it pretty clear that gives a very sophisticated and accurate definition of antisemitism. The distinction with anti-Zionism, and I think two elements, I mean, it's a bit more complex, but to narrow it down, I think one of it is the questioning of the very legitimacy of the existence of the state of Israel, which is something that is done only against Israel, basically. You can question, you know, the policies of the state of Brazil or Belarus or Congo, it's only Israel. They get questioned for its very own existence. And I think the second component is the almost obsessive criticism and attack is the singling out is the double standard, is the going after the mistakes. The occasional acts that Israel does that are incorrect, the occasional, you know, abuses, the things that Israel might be doing incorrectly, but they are magnified and scrutinized in a way that happens with no other country. This in academia is a very unpopular position. I think in the Middle East Studies Association voted for BDS against Israel. So boycott,divest and sanction we're 93, 94% majority. So the environment in academia is obviously leaning in a very clearly anti-Zionist with a thin line towards antisemitism, uh, wave. There's no question about that.
DS: Wendy, I want to get back to the making of the film, and then I guess more importantly at this point, the distribution of the film. You had a very difficult time getting this film made. Can you just tell me the reaction you got from agents, from studios, from, you know, all the various stakeholders that are typically involved in the making of a film? When did you first start talking to these players and what was the reaction you got?
WS: Well, at the end of October, I wrote a treatment for the film. Like I said, you know, I saw what was happening. I wanted to document this moment. It felt epic. There was a story that needed to be told, and I shopped that treatment around. I had just come off of working, um, on a bunch of other documentary series with other production companies. I sent it to NBC News Studios. I sent it to CNN. I sent it around and everyone said no. And by the way, I'd made another independent documentary film before and I had promised myself I would never do that again. It's a terrible business model. But here I was, you know, I thought, okay, I'm gonna do this. I have to make this film. And I started reaching out to people to book people for the film. Dan, you were one of the first people I reached out to after Richie Torres. I drove down to the, uh, Washington, DC Israel rally on November 14th, and that was my first shoot, and I pretty much announced everyone I'm making this film. At the same time, I couldn't get an agent. I couldn't get any representation. Even right now, I don't have an agent representing me or the project, which is pretty extraordinary given all of the incredible people who are involved in the film. I mean, I reached out to Debra Messing. I started DMing her, you know, as a kid, say, sliding into her dm. I did not know her before this film, and I saw what she was doing and she was so unapologetic using her platform to speak out about the hypocrisy, what she was seeing, and to call out, you know, for the release of the hostages. And I thought, okay, I, I should bring Debra Messing on board that'll help raise the profile of the film and help, you know, get distribution and get representation and get a film made. Um, she agreed and she's part of the film, but even with Debra, even with people like Michael Rappaport and Sheryl Sandberg and Scott Galloway and all of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who are part of this film, you know, it's a very serious, weighty film and still, I went to every agent in Hollywood who represents documentary. Not every agent, but I went to CAA, UTA, Gersh, and ironically, all of these people are Jewish. He were the agents and everyone said they saw rough cuts of the film. They said, I, I like you, I like, it's a great film. Good for you for making this. But sorry, I can't touch it. Sorry. It's not gonna make money. Netflix won't touch it. Amazon won't touch it. Hulu won't. On and on and on, and listen, I blocked out the noise. I was determined to get it out there in the world. We do have distribution, Breyer Cliff Entertainment, and Tom Wardenberg, who's an incredible producer in Hollywood, he picked up the film and against sort of all odds, we are being distributed and AMC is carrying this film. We're gonna be in more than a hundred theaters across the country. We have Canadian distribution. We'll be on paid streaming platforms in April. You know, we also did an Academy award run. We did a short campaign. We were not shortlisted, not surprising. And you started out the show talking about the film that did win the, uh, academy Award for best documentary. And it's a film that is, you know, on the other side of the issue, one would argue, you know, just very, um, anti-Israel, you know, there is a Israeli director involved, but you know, if you listen to the speech he gave at the Academy Awards, you can see the, the point of view where he's coming from. So there is a radio activity in Hollywood to this kind of film, to anything that's Israel related or October 7th related, there's a fear, um, in Hollywood of being canceled for speaking out. We see it across Hollywood. We see it with actors, we see it with agents. It's very troubling. It's very problematic.
DS: I wanna stay on this for a moment, okay? Because I'm not gonna single them out by name, but I know a number of these agents, and I know a number of these executives at these agencies you are going to, were they saying, hey, it's not gonna get picked up. There's just, unfortunately the climate just, there's gonna be no buyers for this film, Wendy. We love what you're doing, but there's just no market for this. I mean, that's a very practical, rational response. That's one way to respond. The other way to respond is, everything I just said and then say, and that's outrageous. I'm a major player at a major agency and it's outrageous that there are no buyers for this film, and it's outrageous that no one in institutional Hollywood wants to be attached to this issue. And I'm gonna do something about it. I'm not only gonna rep your film, Wendy, I'm gonna speak out. I have enormous influence. There are a number of players in Hollywood that need me as much as I need them, and I'm suddenly gonna start taking names. And going public with what's going on here. Did you find anyone willing to stick their neck out?
WS: I did find someone, and that's why we have distribution. Um, I would say first-
DS: But Hold on, hold on, hold on. Before you get to that one person, you're doing all these conversations. Like did you sense from anyone that you're describing conversations in which they're being very clinical. Well, this is the problem. The climate is such… They’re being very sort of analytical about it as opposed. Were any of them outraged?
WS; Most were not outraged. Most were, you know, you go girl, kind of a thing. Like, we're happy you're doing this and good for you, but sorry, we can't help you. Um, sorry, the climate is pretty hot right now and we're not gonna take it on. We can't make any money off of this. And Oh, I've seen 10 of these films. Sorry. Good luck to you. That was for the most part, the reaction that I got and you know, people said like, hey, I wanna help you out. Like, check in with me, I'll take another look at the next cut of your film. It was further into the summer that I was connected to someone who became an executive producer on the film, and he's definitely flexing his strength in Hollywood to get the word out and he is outraged. And it took, you know, really that kind of commitment from someone inside Hollywood to get this film to where it is today. But I would say by and large, the conversation was how you first positioned it, which was, sorry, can't help you. But not a lot of outrage, more like this is the reality.
DS: Yeah, this is like a modern day scene of this book I referenced over the last year and a half on this podcast called The Pity of It All, which is about life in Germany. Basically for, you know, over a century leading up to World War II and the, and the rise of the Nazis. And it's just striking as you get closer and closer to where the book ends, you have these German Jews have enormous prominence in every aspect of German life. German, non-Jewish life, they're major players. As influential as these people in Hollywood, these Jewish executives and agents in Hollywood are, and they're protecting the status quo is more important to them than actually doing something. So it's very chilling.
WS: Well, the irony, Dan, of course sorry to jump in, but the irony is, you know, Jews run Hollywood, right? Like this. This was like always sort of like the elephant in the room. Jews run Hollywood and we can't even get this film made right? Or we can get it made, but no one's ever gonna see it, right? So like that to me is what's so striking and so outrageous. There is such a fear factor of getting canceled, of losing subscribers, of just sticking your neck out. It is extraordinary.
DS: And you're seeing the same thing, by the way, I talked to friends of mine who work in Israeli television because Israeli television has had this boom over the last couple, call it decade and a half, where one of the biggest exports outside of tech for the Israeli economy has been selling Israeli concepts and actual Israeli shows in Hebrew that gets subtitled to international audiences via streamers and the Israeli television industry. Even if it's an issue that doesn't deal directly with the conflict, doesn't deal directly with the war, just any kind of content branded as Israel shot in Israel inspired by stories in Israel. It's literally like a chilling response relative to when the, you know, Hollywood was gobbling up content from Israel. So apropos of that, AMC theaters, you know, we said at the beginning, something like a hundred theaters across the country. Why did AMC take this on?
WS: I really don't know. Um, I wish I did and I wanna talk to the head of, uh, AMC who was taking it on. I mean, he, he happens to be Jewish is what I was told. Um, but I don't know him and I, we haven't had a conversation. Listen, I think he's taking a chance on this film and I think AMC is showing, I hate to call it courage, to be honest. You know what I mean? It seems so ridiculous to say that I think the quality of the film, it's a premium film, it stands on its own. Listen, it's really hard to get documentaries seen in movie theaters, any documentary, you know, like those just don't get seen in theaters. They generally go straight to streaming. So this is pretty epic to be honest. It's, it's pretty extraordinary that it's happening, so we're trying to show a demand. We're trying to show Hollywood a demand for this film into film theaters right now. You know, listen, I'm super excited about this. I'm super grateful to everyone who supported this project. And by the way, it's a totally donor funded project. I took no investor money. This is really like a grassroots initiative to get this film made. We have Grammy award-winning composers, Grammy Award-winning songwriters. It's a premium film and so I think the quality of it definitely speaks for itself, but it's taken an army of people underneath me to make this happen.
DS: So Wendy, your film captures this particular period in the US after October 7th, and you chronicle what we know to have actually been going on. Do you know of any other films, or do you worry that there are gonna be films that try to define this moment and define the exact period you're chronicling and the exact events that you're chronicling, but with a completely different take, one of which is celebrating what happened on American campuses and elsewhere romanticizing it, just having a completely different spin on it.
WS: I imagine that there are those films that are in production. I mean, I can speak to the fact of the films that are actually out right now that we were competing against in film festivals around the country. You know, we applied to all of the big ones. South By, Berlin Ale, which is a, a big European festival in Berlin, even Woodstock, and we were rejected by every major film festival. While I would argue the pro-Palestinian narrative ones we're all getting in, we were also just rejected from hot docks in Canada. There is an allergy to my type of film that is presenting the October 7th point of view from I wouldn't even say it is from the like Jewish perspective, but just from the way that we're explaining what anti-Semitism is and the explosion of it in the post October 7th world, no one will touch that in the film community. Not only that, when we were running our Academy award campaign, there's a process to getting the word out to the documentary branch voters and you do these email blasts. And the um, IDA, which is the organization that you do these email blasts, so it reaches the documentary branch voters rejected taking any of our ad money to advertise for our film. Not only that, they also stopped mid campaign, the We Will Dance Again advertising campaign.
DS: The documentary, we Will Dance Again, which is about inspired by the massacres, unfortunately, tragically of the Nova Festival.
WS: That's right. And at first I didn't realize what was going on. We were sort of late to our campaign and we were trying to get in these emails and we had the money set aside and we were supposed to, you know, go live Tuesday and Thursday, you send out a few different blasts. And then I was told, sorry, there's no room in our email blast for your ads. And I thought, well, that's strange. And then I heard what was happening with, We Will Dance Again. And then we were told like they're just rejecting our film. They don't want the documentary branch of voters to see our film. So there is something really insidious going on in the film community. So it's not just Hollywood, but I would argue the independent film world is really highly, whether you wanna call it anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, or just straight up anti-Semitic. There's something really ugly happening there and it's impacting Jewish filmmakers and anyone who's, you know, touching this type of subject matter.
DS: Look, these movies about a particular issue are all about setting a tone in popular culture about how they'll be remembered. Saving Private Ryan is how many of us, at least in my age demographic, that's what we think of when we think of World War II in terms, in terms of what we think of it in popular culture. Platoon is another one, obviously, that that was very definitional as it relates to the Vietnam War. I can give other examples. When it comes to October 7th and I guess your focus, October 8th, how do you think this story will be remembered in popular culture?
WS: I think people are gonna look back and say, what the hell happened on these college campuses? You know, people really did lose their minds. I don't like to diminish students and how they sort of feel about politics in the world and their emotions, but I think that so many of them are on the wrong side of this. I think they've been fed propaganda for so long. They're really uninformed about antisemitism, about knowing anything about Holocaust history, and they've been fed what I would say are lies or mistruths about Israel as a suppressor as this, you know, pariah state, and all of that has just led into this moment that we're in with young people thinking they're on the right side of this issue, but not being, and they don't even understand that they're supporting terrorism. I mean, some of them do. Okay. So some do, but I would argue most don't. And the students who we saw at those spring encampments, you know, who were painting their nails and playing music and you know, it was like a camp situation at Columbia University. Are those all anti-Semites? No, but they are thinking that they're part of a community and they're doing the right thing and young people wanna feel like they're doing the right thing. And I think we're gonna look back and say. How did so many smart people get it so wrong? And why did these universities let this happen? Why didn't they have the courage to shut it down? To call it out for what it is? It is not free speech. It is hate speech. And why is the Jewish community the only community that gets targeted in this way, and it's okay. No other community would this happen if you had gay students. If you had African American students, if you had indigenous students, if you had Latino students, it would not be okay and it would be shut down. Professors would be fired. You know, students would be expelled. But when it comes to Jews, something is different here, and I think we're gonna look back at that and we're going to say, you know, we got it wrong. I hope we look back. You know, I, I hope we really do. I hope there is a reflection point, um, sometime soon, and that we understand that this is also bigger than the Jews. I mean, that is the takeaway of the film, is it's not about the Jews. This is something much larger. This is why the world needs to really pay attention to what's happening right now. It's also not just happening in America. As you guys know, this is happening around the world, particularly in Europe.
DS: And the film will be playing in about a hundred theaters for one week, beginning this Friday, and after that, where can people watch it?
WS: It's gonna be on paid streaming platforms. It will be on Amazon and iTunes and a whole bunch of other platforms beginning April 1st.
DS: But don't use, I'm telling this to the call me back community. Don't use the fact that it'll be available on streaming as a crutch. Go to a theater. If there is a theater anywhere remotely close to where you are, go see it in the theater because I think it's very important for there to be a big showing for this film, 'cause that's a statement in and of itself. And then if you really don't get a chance to see it, then you can stream. But don't hold off on going to a theater. Wendy Sachs, Lorenzo Vedino, thank you for this conversation and for all you're doing to tell this story.
WS: Thank you so much, Dan. Thanks for having us on.
LV: Thank you. Thank you very much.
DS: That's our chat for today. If you or your organization are interested in sponsoring, call me back, we'd love to hear from you. You can reach us at callmeback@arkmedia.org. That's callmeback@arkmedia.org. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with others who you think may appreciate it. Time and again we've seen that our listeners are the ones driving the growth of the call me back community. So thank you. To offer comments, suggestions, sign up for updates or explore past episodes, visit our website, arkmedia.org. That’s arkmedia.org where you can also find transcripts with hyperlinked resources, which will hopefully help you deepen your own understanding of the topics we cover. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. Additional editing by Martin Huergo. Ark Media’s executive editor is Yardena Schwartz. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.