Toronto: Director of Reinstated TIFF October 7 Film Says He Feels Vindicated But “Battered”

Perhaps one of the more unusual aspects of the whole Toronto Internation Film Festival controversy over The Road Between Us, says the director of the reinstated October 7 documentary, is how much real life mirrors the film.

After all, Barry Avrich’s movie focuses on a retired Israeli general in Tel Aviv who pulls together with his wife and several military personnel he meets along the way to rescue his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren from a kibbutz near the Gaza border on Oct 7. And The Road Between Us itself will be shown at TIFF, thanks to its own show of unity from Jewish groups and pro-Israel advocates to protest the festival’s decision to disinvite it.

“It really is about people coming together,” Avrich said, referring to both aspects.

Avrich was at a Toronto hotel Sunday, sitting alongside his subject, that retired Israeli general Noam Tibon, trying to make sense of…