Documentary filmmaker Wendy Sachs was with her daughter Lexi at the University of Wisconsin-Madison when she first heard of Hamas’ terror attack in Israel.
“The images from Israel, babies and children, young people, grandparents are killed. Their murders were placed live stream, were placed on Facebook. The videos of the telegram of the Nova festival, young people were held hostage and abducted in Gaza,” Sachs reminded themselves Fox News Digital.
But when she saw the rise in anti -Semitism erupting the following days at university campuses throughout the country, she knew she had to do something.
“October 8, when I saw the protests on Times Square, and then I saw what happened the next day on October 9, and in Harvard, where more than 30 student groups drew on a letter that Israel blamed for the attack on itself. And then we saw the same happening from the campus after the campus, from Columbia to Nyu, Pennnl, the. denial. ”
“And so I knew at the end of October that I had to document what happened,” she added. “And then I wrote a treatment for the film.”
What resulted was “October 8”, a documentary that the Disruptive increase in anti -Semitism Against Jewish students in the most elite universities in our country and the disturbing and nasty forces that control this phenomenon.
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“8 October” investigates the outbreak of anti -Semitism that elite high schools in this country are too much testing. (Christopher L. d’Alessandro)
Sachs, an author and filmmaker whose previous works the film “Surge” and the book “Fearless and Free: How Smart Women Pivot and their career” include “, conducted 80 interviews with 80 interviews with October 7 survivorsStudents, celebrities and politicians for this film. Actress Debra Messing, rep. Ritchie Torres (DN.Y.) and former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg to try to unpack how so many apparently well -trained young people could follow the path of supporting the terrorist group Hamas.
What Sachs thought was a well -oriented campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state and to stigmatize his supporters abroad.
In one of the most shocking revelations of the film, senior “Leaders of Hamas in America” ​​are heard a strategies about how you can infiltrate us “media, universities and research centers” and coordinate their language to make Hamas the most tasty for an American progressive audience.
“The Americans … We must address them from a position of rights and justice, and at the same time choose our words well,” says a non -created voice in the recording.
Organizations such as the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have accused Israel of committing “Apartheid” and “Genocide” during the trivialization or silence of Hamas -Vrijnesses on October 7, according to Sachs. She said that the silence of these groups led her to make this film.
“In the weeks that followed on October 7, there was so much silence from Hollywood and so much silence from organizations of women’s rights and silence from politicians I admire and I respect and that I have supported, and even under my own professional women’s networks.
“It was just strange, the hypocrisy and the double standards that happened when it came to Israel and the fact that they were Jewish women who were raped and who were killed and they were mutilated,” Sachs said.
Jewish students have besieged themselves since the anti-Israeli demonstrations started. (Jeenah Moon/Getty images)
The film emphasized various cases of anti-Semitism that took place at university campuses, including mobs from anti-Israeli activists who succeeded Jewish Cooper Union students who had to lock themselves in a library for protection, UCLA Anti-Israël demonstrators Creating zones on campus where “Zionists” were not allowed to walk and Jewish students in Cornell were told not to leave their dorms because of threats on their physical safety.
Former UC Santa Barbara Student Body President Tessa Veksler was subject to a stream of abuse and almost remembered her position because of her support for Israel.
“I remember missing my final exam personally, I had to take all my exams online because the campus was just not safe for me,” Veksler said in the film.
Sachs and other Jewish artists were shocked in Hollywood for their silence after the attacks of 7 October. Messing revealed that she had trouble finding signatories for a letter that was called on the world governments to bring the hostages home.
“I felt completely betrayed by Hollywood,” said Messing in the movie.
The scene in a warehouse in Kfar Chabad, Israel on October 7 after Hamas fired Rockets on the one -year anniversary of the terrorist attack that launched the war in Gaza. (Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty images)
Making this film was a tough battle, well -known Sachs. She struggled to find distribution for the documentary, and even after she found a distributor, she could not be placed “October 8” in every large film festival.
Sachs told Fox News Digital how film festivals such as SXSW and Berlinale would not show her documentary, but they would allow films about Palestinians.
“Something very treacherous happens in the independent film community,” she said.
“This is much larger than the Jewish community. This is much larger than the state of Israel. This is about all of us here in America. This is about the West. This is really about Islamic jihadism, extremism versus democracy. So that’s what the commitment is now,” she added.
Sachs hopes that her film serves as an educational tool that can use schools in the K-12 curriculum to combat anti-Semitism.
“October 8” is on Friday, March 14 in Theaters.
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