In “The Killing Roads,” director Igal Hecht confronts the visceral pain of October 7

TORONTO – Israeli-Canadian documentary filmmaker Igal Hecht did not witness first-hand the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 – but he says the horrors of that fateful day have haunted his daily life for almost a year now.

These horrors are at the heart of his new film, “The Killing Roads,” which will be released this week – just before the first anniversary of the pogrom that was committed by the terrorist group in southern Israel. The gunmen, carrying out atrocities, killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 251 people who were taken hostage in the Gaza Strip.

But instead of focusing on the kibboutzim which were ravaged or on the Supernova electronic music festival where another carnage had occurred, “The Killing Roads” focuses on what happened on routes 232 and 34, where terrorists who had crossed the border between the coastal enclave and Israel had shot 250 people in cold blood.

Hecht has decided to make “The Killing Roads” available for free on social networks and on a specific website. Its objective: To fight as best as possible against the denial of what Israel may have experienced on the occasion of the most terrible, most dramatic day in its entire modern history.

Hecht notes that this documentary was the most traumatic of his entire career as a director – even though he already has 52 films to his credit. And its shocking content still haunts him today.

“It was – by far – the most difficult film for me to make because of its emotional impact,” explains Hecht during a recent meeting, in a Toronto café, with the Times of Israel. “It required more effort than my other films. Usually, I love making films. I like the production. I like being on the field. But not this time. I felt no joy in making this film. I hated every moment of filming. Every place we filmed broke my heart.”

While this nearly two-hour film was painful for Hecht to make, it is also extremely difficult to watch. As its title indicates, death looms at every moment in “The Killing Roads”. The film examines the massacre perpetrated by Palestinian terrorists on the thoroughfares of southern Israel on October 7, combining images of the atrocities with poignant testimonies from survivors, rescuers and relatives of the victims. It takes viewers on a bloody journey along these deadly roads, tracing the journey of the terrorists who entered southern Israel at 6:30 a.m., and documenting the horrors they committed.

Yet Hecht is no stranger to difficult subjects – he has made films about the Holocaust and the Rwandan, Bangladeshi, Cambodian and Yazidi genocides.

“Those projects were taxing, but this was a project that touched my own private life,” says Hecht, 47, who was born in Israel where he maintains many relatives, friends and colleagues. “Each day spent on the film set awakened in me a new wave of sorrow,” he confides.

“It may seem dramatic, grandiloquent, but my heart was really breaking during each day of filming,” he adds. “There were times when my cameraman, Lior Cohen, and I were silent, overwhelmed by the magnitude of what we were filming. As we got deeper into the different stories, I felt overcome by a rage that continued to grow. I kept asking myself: ‘But how could we allow this to happen?’ »

It’s hard not to ask yourself this question while watching the film, which was made largely from three sources of raw material that are mostly previously unpublished: It is 30 hours of film directed by Hecht in Israel, last March; 50 hours of footage shot by the first United Hatzalah rescuers and numerous chilling video recordings that were made and posted on social media by the Hamas terrorists themselves.

There are many violent images in “The Killing Roads” – made only a little less shocking by the fact that the victims’ faces have been blurred, a mark of respect for them and their families. The director also used images from surveillance cameras or personal videos that had been filmed on October 7 by some survivors of the pogrom. Survivors he interviews, as well as the victims’ families and members of the first aid services who came to the scene of the carnage – interviews which add to the poignancy of the documentary.

Born in Ashkelon, Hecht moved to Toronto with his family in 1988 when he was 11 years old. His parents, of Ukrainian origin, had left Israel in search of a better life in Canada – for themselves and for their two sons. When his parents gave him a VHS camera as a gift during his bar mitzvahhe quickly developed a passion for filmmaking – and he would eventually found his production company, Chutzpa Productions Inc., in 1999. His documentaries and television series – many of them were filmed on the Israeli soil – have been shown on television and at film festivals in many countries, regularly winning awards.

Igal Hecht constantly follows Israeli news closely. Like the majority of Jews, he vividly remembers the moment he heard the news of the October 7 pogrom. It was 11:30 p.m. on a Friday evening and he was watching a movie in his apartment in a Toronto suburb where many other Israeli-Canadians live. He says his phone suddenly started ringing in rapid succession. Glancing around, he realized that it was the rocket fire reporting app toward Israel that he had installed on his device. He remembers that it was while watching the news on his screen that he quickly realized that what was happening was different from the terrorist group’s usual attacks.

“I stayed up all night,” Mr. Hecht recalls. “There was no way I was going to fall asleep. I went to Telegram, because that’s where we get the most news from now on and I also have access to all the messages transmitted by Hamas. I started to see that they were attacking Sderot, Netivot and the kibboutzim. During the first hours, we heard everything and anything, a lot of incorrect information. We didn’t know exactly what was happening and we wondered where the army was. The next morning, I ended up sleeping for a few hours and then I was glued to my screen for five days, completely disconnected from the rest of the world.”

Shortly after, Hecht decided to dedicate a film to October 7. After watching more footage of the pogrom, reading about the massacre, and carefully studying a map, he realized that what had happened on the roads in the south of the country – including in the air raid shelters which are on the edge – would constitute an interesting angle.

Hecht pitched the idea to Canadian channels who, together, had broadcast a dozen of his previous documentaries. They showed little interest at first and refused to participate in the project when he sent them a model and a nine-minute demo reel. He says he was not discouraged.

“I decided I didn’t need them,” Hecht says. “I was influenced by the release of ‘Screams Before Silence’ [le documentaire de Sheryl Sandberg sur les violences sexuelles faites aux femmes dans le cadre du massacre du 7 octobre]. I loved that it was streamed for free on YouTube, which is now the largest streaming platform in the world. »

Hecht already understood that YouTube and streaming.

“I told myself that if I broadcast my film on YouTube, X, Vimeo and on a website created for this purpose, then it could reach millions of people,” he explains. “He could really make an impact. Once I calmed down, after the response from the channels, I decided to opt for free broadcasting.”

Despite financial difficulties, Hecht committed to his project.

“I told myself that I would be able to cover the costs if necessary,” he explains. “I started a GoFundMe campaign, which was not as successful as I hoped [elle n’a permis de récolter que 14 000 dollars canadiens]but I told myself that it didn’t matter, that I was making money from other shows that I was producing for television and that I could carry out this project. I told myself I could do it.”

Hecht, whose technical versatility and ingenuity had allowed him in the past to make films on a tight budget, received support from Pino Halili, the film’s executive producer, who covered part of the costs. post-production. His regular collaborators, for their part, worked at a reduced rate.

In “The Killing Roads,” unlike most of his previous films, it is Hecht who provides his own narration. He appears several times on camera.

“It’s a film whose subject matter makes me extremely angry and I couldn’t put that anger aside,” he exclaims. “And I’m still angry.” I don’t know when this anger will disappear, if it ever disappears. I’m angry about what’s happening in this country [le Canada] to the Jews, in my line of work, I am angry because of what happens to people like me who are not afraid to say that they are Zionist and pro-Israeli. It is in this context that the making of this film took place.”

He is now worried about the type of audience his documentary will attract.

“Because it wants to be a condemnation of the evil that was unleashed on October 7 and a condemnation of the anti-Semitic lies that are currently trying to justify or deny such barbarity, I hope that the film will reach a very wide audience,” he said. It encourages organizations, Jewish or not, to use it free of charge for public screenings.

“No country should have to endure the savagery that Israel suffered on that dark day, and yet the world seems to want to forget it,” he adds.