We are made of ‘our loves’. A conversation with Avi Nesher

Tel Aviv. The terrorist attacks of 7 October 2023, when Hamas breached the barrier between Gaza and Israel, surrounding 21 kibbutzim and killing 1,200 people – including Israeli citizens and foreign nationals, as well as the 251 hostages – were chronicled in the two documentaries "We Will Dance Again" and the miniseries "One Day in October".

However, it was only last September that they made it to the big screen thanks to the extraordinary cinematic work of Avi Nesher – one of Israel’s best-known directors, renowned internationally – who tells Il Foglio about the long journey that led him to tell the story of five ordinary citizens in Our Loves, which had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.

The stories of these Israeli men and women begin in the days leading up to 7 October: a girl grappling with her parents’ divorce; a policewoman and a security guard at the Nova music festival; a young woman who has just been dumped by her boyfriend and wants to go dancing to take her mind off the pain. Ordinary people, whose lives are turned upside down by the horrific Hamas attack and who find themselves forced to pick up the pieces.

Avi Nesher drew the film’s stories from the testimonies of real survivors and insists that his is not a film ‘about 7 October’: “It is not a film about the historical, military or political aspects of the event itself, but about the people who found themselves caught up in it against their will, about their inner dilemma, their choices and the universal human truths that emerge when everything we know comes crashing down.”

A few days after the massacre, Nesher had received a phone call from an acquaintance at a kibbutz where many people had been killed; the survivors had been forced to evacuate to another kibbutz, where he had been invited to speak about cinema: “They began to tell me their stories of 7 October, which were completely different from what one might expect. They were less concerned with recounting the facts than with describing the state of mind they were in when Black Saturday burst into their lives: stories that were at once dramatic, amusing and unimaginable. I thought then that, if I were ever to make a film about that event, it would be a film about ‘ordinary’ people. Just as we all were, until 6 October. My commitment, therefore, had become to tell the story through the eyes of the people who had lived through it: to recount the human experience that takes you to the worst place on earth and where, despite everything, humanity manages to survive in a way that even allows one to find a form of redemption.”

And yet, at present, anything to do with Israel is bound to provoke negative reactions and boycotts. “We are facing a tsunami of anti-Semitism, in Italy and across Europe. It is hardly surprising that three of Europe’s leading film festivals – Berlin, Cannes and Venice – are boycotting Israeli cinema, unless it is explicitly anti-Israeli. That is why I found it extraordinary that the film had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, the least politicised of all festivals, which focuses on the art of filmmaking. When the selection committee saw the film, it recognised the merit of the direction and the screenplay and, in doing so, made it possible to present to an international audience the events of 7 October as seen by Israelis, just as the tragedy of Vietnam was masterfully portrayed by American filmmakers. It was precisely during those years that I lived and studied in New York, in the midst of all the anti-war demonstrations. At that time, both in the United States and abroad, there was a strong political movement opposed to the American government, but no one was opposed to Hollywood, cinema, literature or American art. No one would ever have dreamt of boycotting it. That is why I see the boycott of Israeli art as a form of anti-Semitism, because no festival these days would ever dream of boycotting filmmakers from China, Syria or Iran. To think that we have reached a point where we have to be grateful to a festival simply because it agrees to screen a film means we must ask ourselves just how much anti-Semitism has now become accepted, even towards artists who, for four years, have fought against the Israeli government and, instead of being helped, are being punished.”

In twenty days’ time, Israelis will return to the polls. “And four years on from the last election, I find myself looking at a government and ministers who are light years away from the sentiments of the majority of Israelis, which is why I truly hope that this election can change that, to allow Israelis to breathe again and the world to stop hating us. Until 6 October, we were known as the ‘Start-up Nation’, and this remains our goal: to promote development and well-being not only within the country, but also abroad. One of the paradoxes of 7 October is that it helped us look within, as individuals and as a country, to understand what is necessary for the safeguarding of Israel, both internally and externally. Israelis have the right to know what led to 7 October and to do everything possible to ensure that such a massacre never happens again. But I hope that these elections and a new government may also bring about a change in perspective abroad, where anti-Semitism is leading to the erasure of Jewish-Israeli culture. As I am and always will be a humanist, I believe strongly in the common sense of human beings and, for this reason, I believe that art has such great value. Precisely because it can build bridges between cultures and succeed where governments fail to reach.”