Barry Avrich’s controversial feature doc The Road Between Us was awarded the People’s Choice Documentary Award as doors closed on the 50th Toronto International Film Festival (September 14).
The film, which tells the story of Israeli general Noam Tibon and the fallout from the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, had been withdrawn from the TIFF schedule on August 23 for “important safety, legal and programming concerns” before it was reinstated.
The TIFF premiere was met with protests. On the TIFF red carpet, Avrich said: “I ultimately wish anybody that’s protesting this film watches it first. Then let’s have a conversation…In the world right now we need to hear stories of family and unity and that’s what this movie is about.”
The film is scheduled for a North American theatrical release on 3 October, four days before the second anniversary of the attacks. Cineplex and Forston Consulting will handle the film’s distribution in Canada and the US respectively.
The first Runner-Up in TIFF’S People’s Choice Doc Award was EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert by Baz Luhrmann. The second Runner-Up was You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution…by Nick Davis.
Elsewhere, Canadian Min Sook Lee’s There Are No Words, in which the director tells the hitherto untold story of her Korean mother, received an Honorable Mention in the Best Canadian Feature category.
“This film is a profound and devastating story of unspeakable loss; the shifting shape and mingling of individual and collective memory; the sometimes brutal immigrant experience; and how past violent personal and political realities can continue to define the identity of a family,” said the jury.
