NEW YORK -- Horror came with sunrise following an all-night rave near the Gaza border on Oct.7, 2023, the Hamas attack presaged by rockets that some young people mistakenly thought were fireworks.A new documentary shows the attack unfold over the next hours in stomach-churning detail: Gunmen mowing down passengers in cars that try to escape.
Hiding in a garbage dumpster, or a refrigerator, to avoid detection.Live grenades tossed into a bunker, then thrown out seconds before exploding.
Terrified hostages carried away to an uncertain fate.Veteran news producer Susan Zirinsky calls “We Will Dance Again” the most significant project she's ever worked on, notable praise considering her "9/11” film is arguably the best video document of that day.How much it is seen, however, may depend as much on context as content.The film is now streaming on the Paramount+ service and debuted last weekend on Showtime, in advance of the attack's one-year anniversary.Distributors acknowledge, however, that it has been a hard sell in markets across the world: many potential outlets and film festivals did not want to wade into a hot-button political issue with war in the Mideast grinding on.A message at the film's beginning acknowledges that the human cost of the Oct.
7 massacre and the war that followed in Gaza “has been catastrophic for both Israelis and Palestinians” and lists the death toll on both sides.“This film cannot tell everyone's story,” it says.The message does not appear, however, when “We Will Dance Again” is screened in Israel.“We are documenting a moment in history,” Zirinsky said.
“This is not a political film.This happened.”The former CBS News president is now chief of See It Now Studios and, with colleague Terence Wrong, has made a specialty of filmed recountings of major events, like the “11 Minutes” series about the 2017 mass shooting at a country music concert in Las Vegas.
With cameras in everyone's pocket, there's a rich trove of r...