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00:00we are joined now by brandon kramer the director of holding liot and lance kramer the producer

00:12of the film thank you so much for being with us thanks for having us thank you so much for having

00:17us matt so brandon and lance you are related to yehuna benyon is that right yeah we're distant

00:24cousins of yehuda and chaya our very first experience traveling to israel was spending time

00:31on their kibbutz and um you know when we found out that liat naviv went missing we called them

00:42as relatives not at all thinking we were going to make a film and in that conversation

00:48they told us that they were getting no response from the israeli government and they were planning

00:54to come to our hometown of washington dc to try to advocate for her release because liat is an

01:00american citizen as well and in that conversation we decided that we should pick up our camera

01:06our relatives had been thrust into the center of a geopolitical crisis and you know as we began to

01:13film we saw that what they were going through was so different than any of the narratives that we were

01:20seeing in the media and on social media and felt this responsibility to uh see their experience

01:27through and you really didn't know at the beginning whether as i understand it whether you might be

01:32filming for just a few days or of course there was no way of knowing how this story would play out

01:38that's right i mean you know in front of our camera were three generations of one family

01:47navigating their grief in very different ways um in particular liat's father's um experience in his

01:56perspective who obviously is the protagonist of the film was a narrative we did not see that was out

02:03there in the world i mean um you know within days of liat being taken the he was very vocal in saying

02:11that i don't want my daughter's or son-in-law's pain or the trauma that my family is being is going through

02:19to be used to justify further violence um against palestinians and you know we felt that that was a

02:27perspective that was really really urgent and needed in this moment and lance i think in some respects

02:34the film can be experienced as as a character study really quite a fascinating one of the differences

02:42between yehuda and chaya his wife yehuda as we see really has a particular way of of dealing with this

02:53traumatic and dramatic circumstances where he goes very much into an intellectual mode i want to argue

03:01about this as opposed to showing his emotion and you might think for the audience well that's not as

03:07interesting as someone becoming very emotional and yet we underneath the surface we sense how deeply he's

03:16feeling this and that this is sort of a coping mechanism for him yeah well you know i mean you you said

03:24it in a sense that um the way that yehuda showed showed up in that moment um where the line is drawn

03:34between his politics and his emotional response is very blurry at best and this was not something that

03:43we could even necessarily understand fully as it was happening but it was something we were trying to get

03:48closer to as we were in the midst of production and um what we saw was that um politics and leaning into

03:58his positionality around the conflict um was a way for him to deal with what was otherwise um an

04:07incomprehensible level of grief and trauma and um it had a purpose as well um and it was effective in some

04:17respects um but it also was a way to just wake up in the morning and function and not everyone as you

04:23see in the film in the family either agreed with him and his politics or also not everyone was

04:30processing their own emotions the same way and so we thought that it was important to also not just see

04:34how he was showing up but also the dissonance and the difference with his family within the family

04:41and ultimately um i think one of the great kind of catharsis that the film offers um in the end is

04:50being able to see some of those walls break down within yehuda oh yes it's very moving in the end where

04:57he really breaks down after the release of his daughter and he just really can't hold it back and

05:04anymore we see how how closely he's been holding all of that in we talk about the differences within

05:12the family and it's certainly one of the remarkable scenes for me is just seeing yehuda and his grandson

05:21netta liat's uh youngest son riding in a car and yehuda is sort of expostulating on on his political

05:30position and and i just sensed the body language of netta like he's just kind of gritting his teeth

05:38and so brandon you were really able to capture so many intimate moments like that yeah i think i mean

05:43for netta in particular i mean he's days from surviving the attack himself both of his parents

05:52are missing he's being asked to speak to senators and and news media give speeches to try to advocate

06:00for their release he's going through an horrible set of circumstances and on top of that he has us

06:08as documentary filmmakers seeing the what the behind the scenes intimate moments looked like for them

06:15i mean this is not a film this was a very intimately shot film we're sleeping on the floor outside of

06:24their hotel room so we can see the two o'clock in the morning phone calls that the family is receiving

06:30from the idf telling them that liat and aviv are not going to be home and so it took an enormous amount

06:36of courage and trust on their behalf and um to let us in and you know to be honest there were moments where

06:44we pushed too hard um there were you know when you see netta storming off in some of those scenes

06:50he's not just angry at yahuda his grandfather sometimes he's upset with me um as a relative

06:56and as a filmmaker trying to walk this like impossible ethical line um making this film was a constant

07:05process of trying to show up as a family member and a documentarian and i give enormous credit to our

07:13producer and director of photography yoni brooke because at moments where it was too difficult

07:19and painful for me to keep filming or to show up with a camera in these intimate spaces yoni you know

07:25would be like no this is important we need to we need to be there we need to be present and that

07:30collaboration allowed both the intimacy but also the you know some of the journalistic rigor that we

07:36tried to apply for this film i'm curious lance and brandon had you met liat earlier in your lives you

07:45mentioned having gone to israel had you met her before we were at a bat mitzvah with liat and aviv

07:54two months before october 7th and met them briefly kind of in passing but we did not have a close

08:03relationship with them at all before october 7th um we were very close with liat's parents we were

08:10very close with liat's sister we did not know her and her husband we didn't know her children

08:17well before before this happened and so that process of you know in particular for liat on the day she was

08:26released she's coming out of 54 days in captivity she 12 hours later she's discovering that her husband

08:34was killed she's grieving that loss and the shock of this moment and she's also finding out that a

08:42documentary has been made for the last 54 days following her family's experience and so for me it was

08:50really important to give her a lot of agency in making decisions around if she participated in the

08:57film and how so for example that scene that you see in the film where the four of them are together

09:03for the first time um after the funeral she initially agreed to she wanted to have that conversation on

09:11camera and then she turned to me and said you know what brandon this is too difficult i don't want this

09:15film and i backed away and i said no problem and we left then they started to talk and it was a really

09:22healing space and conversation she actually came over and said brandon actually i actually do want

09:28this documented and so there was a process of giving her a lot of power and agency and determining you know

09:37if and how her her experience would be a part of this film and thankfully she she agreed and really

09:44felt it was important you know i was very interested in how you shot that you kept a respectful distance

09:52i noticed that liott was really shot in profile a lot of say i think news minded people would have

10:01just get right up in her face and and see this and and you didn't and i wanted to ask you also about

10:07other choices that you make that i think are actually quite important lance i don't know if you want to

10:13weigh in on this but i think you make very judicious use of home movies home videos of liott and aviv and

10:22their family we see a little bit of their wedding for instance a lot of other filmmakers i think that

10:28would have played a lot of that you use a little bit we need to know who aviv was because as we learn

10:34in the film he did not survive so we need to see that footage but you don't play you know heavy violin

10:43music and music and that sort of thing so i think that was a very interesting and and i think cautious

10:50choice on your part well a lot of that credit really goes to the our editor jeff gilbert who is

10:57just a masterful storyteller and it was really like the gift of a lifetime to have the chance to work with

11:03him um and uh he brought a sensibility to the edit that placed such a high reference on being present

11:19and also being very committed to whatever truthfulness he was feeling in the material

11:27and where the material was leading him not where he wanted to lead the material and and i think that

11:34when it came to the archival um and also just dealing with the whole edit we had this big question which

11:42was you know what is the structure of the film in the first place is it based around the 54 days

11:48um and it ends with liat's release is it that actually all the material that we filmed during

11:55the 54 days is a precursor but the story really starts afterwards is it somewhere in between we had

12:01all these kinds of conversations and we landed obviously with the structure that you just saw but

12:09where where so much of the narrative really was focused on what happened with the family and

12:15understanding their experience during those 54 days however each person in the family wasn't defined

12:21by who they were after october 7th they were obviously people with lives and complicated lives

12:29prior love loss all the qualities that make us human and we felt that there were certain key moments in

12:37the film where it was important to just give a small hint of who each person was before october

12:447th so that the viewer could feel just a small piece of what the protagonist was feeling

12:51not everything but just a small hint to have a window into what kind of memory each protagonist in

12:57the family might be accessing and then we wanted to just be able to trust the viewer that they could

13:02fill in the blanks and maybe we gave them just enough that they could expand their imagination for

13:09what each person might be and if there's a hopefully a felt sense for for particularly aviv who tragically

13:15we we don't get to meet at the end of the film and um we had a ton of material archival material it was

13:23actually unearthed through the process where a filmmaking where yahuda didn't even realize that he had it but

13:29we discovered a box of vhs tapes um one day at the house and um we just unearthed these really magical

13:38videos that um you know even just those few seconds i think are quite powerful i'll just add to it that

13:44um i think the guiding light in the edit that jeff really instilled in all of us was restraint and

13:52um that was true definitely with in our work with jordan dykstra who did an incredible job scoring the

13:58film um and it was true you know in every successive edit was how do we just stay true to the lived

14:05experiences that every single member of this family went through and i will tell you matt you know as

14:12you can imagine with such a uh such an important topic that this film is covering as we edited the film

14:21each one of us had our own political sensibilities and if you look back at our rough cuts you'll see

14:28versions of this film where a specific political message or agenda is being sort of forced through

14:35the edit and a lot of the edit process for us was uh catching those defensive edits that we were making

14:44to make a point and actually flushing that out and returning back to what is the actual lived

14:50experience of this one family and and certainly liat it's almost plays a bit like an epilogue to the

14:59film where she's freed and then we see her extraordinary strength as a human being and and you know she

15:07does interview she speaks about what she has learned through the process so she was held initially in

15:13conunus and the rather startling kindness that she talks about of the family that were that was taking

15:21care of her as she was a hostage so there's so many unexpected remarkable elements to it your film

15:28won the top prize for documentary at the berlin film festival interesting because the year before

15:33no other land which went on to win the oscar won that prize as well you won a major award at doc aviv the

15:41film festival documentary film festival in tel aviv can you give us a sense he played around the world

15:48too at many festivals um you know kind of reactions to the film because i i'm i suspect that there there

15:56might be some israelis who would take issues with it there might be supporters of the palestinian cause

16:02who may have some issues but can you give us a sense of that well the remarkable thing about the

16:07the response to the film has been the way that it has been so strongly embraced by people of many

16:17different backgrounds and persuasions and positions on this conflict and others um in so many different

16:24cultures at this point i mean you just mentioned two places between germany and israel but it's played in

16:30poland and brazil and hong kong croatia australia the us i mean it's now been over a dozen countries

16:41where the film has played in international film festivals documentary film festivals jewish film

16:46festivals just a wide vast variety of of audiences um different kinds of curators and programmers that

16:54are seeing different things in the film um some where they feel like the film will resonate very

17:01strongly with the audience because the audience might really gravitate say towards like yehuda's

17:06perspective and then others where programmers have really been looking to challenge their audiences

17:11and put something in front of them that they think is very important for them to see but might be

17:15more provocative and um it's been really um extraordinary to us to see how people have been connecting with

17:25the humanity of the family and um appreciating that um even in their differences um there's love

17:38and connection and that um the representation of people who are also navigating their differences

17:49together even amidst something like this conflict that is so polarizing and so painful with so much

17:56suffering of israelis and palestinians and people abroad um as well that um people who were directly

18:05impacted could not just confront these differences together but also open up their lives and be

18:11vulnerable to share that with the world i think is just it's been tremendous to see how people have

18:17respected that um and i'll just give one anecdote um that in berlin um the very first person who

18:25actually spoke after the first premiere screening um when we had our first q a was a lebanese man

18:32who um basically got up and said that he had never met another israeli family this was while israel

18:43was actively at war with lebanon um and that he came to the film curious to learn more about israeli

18:51family and he had said that obviously paraphrasing but that he was so moved by the family that he saw in

18:57the film and saw versions of his own family represented in the different people in the film

19:05and felt that um what he asked was whether he could come up on stage and give

19:12yahudah haya liat and tal a hug just incredibly powerful moment where he got up from the back of

19:18the audience and came to the stage and then gave everyone a hug and that's really how like the film

19:23was birthed into the world at berlin and that kind of ethic um or that kind of um response i think has

19:31been repeated many times over which is not to say there hasn't been controversy there's also people

19:38who have been obviously very challenged by the film um and that's important too because even that kind

19:44of discourse has been very civil and it's opened up space for having those kinds of um conversations i

19:52think where otherwise they've been very very difficult if not impossible to have

19:57and brendan just a final question for now but i'm curious about u.s distribution of the film

20:02and what you can say about that um and clearly the backdrop i think you would be naive to think that

20:09it's easy for any film that has to do with october 7th to get distribution in the u.s it may be a little

20:17bit different perhaps in other parts of the world but can you shed some light on that sure um you know

20:24we've been really fortunate that outside the u.s the film has been able to secure distribution in the uk

20:32it just broadcast this week on the bbc storyville we have distribution in japan and spain and france

20:40germany so in some ways actually the u.s situation i think has been positively as hard as things are

20:48here the fact that there are opportunities for a film like this outside the u.s i think has opened up

20:54doors here which has been an interesting thing to experience because we've never had a film that has

21:00been received this way outside the u.s um and our experience is that it's been actually playing much more

21:07outside the u.s first and the u.s is kind of following in a sense um and so most of the

21:15distribution thus far has already happened in europe and asia we're planning to release the film

21:21theatrically in the u.s starting in january so it'll open in um new york at the film forum and then expand

21:30to la and other cities shortly thereafter we're doing that with uh the film collaborative who has been

21:37also handling all of the festival bookings thus far um they've been an amazing partner um and

21:44together with film collaborative and then also our sales agent met film um who's based in the uk but

21:50they're handling the whole uh global territories we're really trying to do is leverage all the

21:56international attention what i imagine and hope will be a very successful theatrical release

22:02um and leaving the door kind of open to see who will jump at the film once they can see what it's

22:10doing not just abroad but also in the u.s um it's not to say it's easy it's not easy but we also didn't

22:17want to wait for a yes before making plans and also responding to the really urgent need to have this

22:25story out in the world and so this has been a very proactive strategy to get the film out there

22:30have people see it and also not just for audiences to see it but also for distributors to see that

22:36there's tremendous demand for stories like this and that audiences are really craving these kinds of

22:44narratives um that speak to the moment that we're living in and also deal with all the feelings and the

22:51conflict that we're living in um um but also doesn't further inflame and divide and so you know we'll

23:01we're very confident that someone uh is gonna see the opportunity to to bring this film even wider

23:08well i think that's uh yeah it would be wrong for distributors to underestimate the audience i think

23:16they are willing to engage especially with a film that's so powerful that you have made here it's

23:22holding liat we've been joined by the director brandon kramer and by producer lance kramer thank you so

23:31much for being with us on for the love of docs thank you so much for having us thank you so much for the

23:36audience we're going to have another film for you in our series next week i was born this way about the

23:42rev carl bean we hope that you will join us next week for that on for the love of docs

Holding Liat | For The Love of Docs

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