Director Barry Avrich and retired Israeli general Noam Tibon, right, arrive on the red carpet to promote The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, on Wednesday.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
The world premiere of The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, one of the most controversial premieres in the Toronto International Film Festival’s half-century history, was greeted with a standing ovation Wednesday afternoon both before and after its sold-out screening inside Roy Thomson Hall.
Directed by prolific Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich, the documentary retraces the journey of retired Israel Defense Forces Major-General Noam Tibon as he and his wife Gali race from Tel Aviv to their son’s home on the Nahal Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border on Oct. 7, 2023, the day that Hamas militants attacked Israel.
After TIFF initially accepted Avrich’s film into its 2025 lineup, the doc was pulled because, according to festival organizers at the time, “general requirements for inclusion in the festival” were not met.
Following discussions between TIFF organizers and the filmmaking team, with Canadian politicians on municipal, provincial and federal levels decrying the film’s withdrawal, the two sides reached a resolution shortly before this year’s festival began.
While the movie debuted inside Roy Thomson Hall, TIFF’s largest venue that is reserved for “gala” events, the doc did not receive additional public screenings nor specific showings for members of the press and industry, opportunities which are typically afforded to official festival selections. (In an interview with The Globe and Mail a day before the screening, TIFF’s chief executive Cameron Bailey noted that the decision to reprogram the film came once the festival schedule had largely been locked.)
“Other films might have had certain privileges, but I’m at Roy Thomson Hall today, and I don’t know how the Thomson family will feel about it, but today, we can call it the ‘Tibon Theatre,’” Avrich, alongside Noam and Gali, said to loud applause during the film’s post-screening Q&A session, moderated by veteran Canadian journalist Lisa LaFlamme.
“We can talk all day long about how there were no press and industry screenings, but we arrived here today and we will release this film internationally. And hopefully people want to see it.”
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The screening, which took place just a little more than midway through the 11-day festival, proceeded largely without incident. Ticketholders walked into the venue past a sizable police presence, which outnumbered a vocal contingent of protesters – the east side of a closed-to-traffic Simcoe Street populated by demonstrators holding Palestinian flags, the west side filled with those holding Israeli and Canadian flags. Security to get inside Roy Thomson was also atypically rigorous, with the slow pace of inspections ensuring that the film started 15 minutes late.
Pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protestors gathered outside Roy Thomson Hall before Wednesday’s premiere.COLE BURSTON/AFP/Getty Images
Inside the theatre, the atmosphere was warm and appreciative, though occasionally charged. When TIFF chief executive Cameron Bailey came onstage to introduce the film, the audience greeted him with both polite applause and a smattering of boos.
“Thank you for being here today to watch the powerful story that unfolds in this film, a story of a family under threat,” Bailey said. “In an environment of rising and dangerous antisemitism, I want to apologize for the hurt that we caused. At TIFF, we believe in the universal power of stories on screen to help empathize with one another even when those stories might challenge our comforts. Today’s screening is an important one, and I ask each one of you here to enjoy in the collective act of simply watching a film together with openness and respect.”
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The audience, which was peppered with moviegoers wearing yellow ribbons symbolizing solidarity with the hostages held by Hamas, largely watched the film in hushed silence. Still, some of the film’s more violent moments – including glimpses of images culled from body-cam footage live-streamed by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack – provoked gasps.
“This was the most emotional film we’ve ever made, and I still come back to … this is a story about family, and not politics for me, as a filmmaker,” Avrich told LaFlamme during the post-screening conversation. “It’s a film about people who I love, and I love their story.”
Noam Tibon, whose entrance following the screening was greeted with cheers, echoed his director’s sentiment onstage. “Family is basically everything that we get, and this is worldwide. This is the most important thing that we have in our lifetime.”
The film, populated by equal amounts of talking-head footage, clips from the attacks, and footage of the Tibon family retracing their steps on Oct. 7, is constructed as a ticking-clock thriller about one man on a mission. It is largely absent much geopolitical history save for a 1956 news reel of Edward R. Murrow explaining the creation of Israel, a clip that bookends the film, and some brief contemporary glimpses of the Gaza war.
Yet issues of the war and the destruction in Gaza did surface during LaFlamme’s post-screening interview. While asking Gali about her thoughts on Israel’s future, LaFlamme’s mention of the country’s “overwhelming use of force” and the Gaza Health Ministry’s estimated death toll of 64,000 Palestinians was greeted with loud jeers and audience members yelling, “Hamas numbers!”
“I speak for myself, if that’s okay,” Gali responded, to applause. “The war on Gaza should have stopped a long time ago. It would do good to everyone in the region, but especially to Israel. We could have had our hostages back a long time ago … In short, many lives could have been saved, and I hope it’s not too late. We can still end the war, bring the hostages back, and bring peace upon the region.”
The Road Between Us will be theatrically distributed in Canada by Cineplex Pictures later this fall.
